


Golden Lion, Silver Trout

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, teenage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 10:45:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1937946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenage Catelyn/Cersei AU in which Tywin and Hoster plan to marry Catelyn to Jamie, but the situation becomes complicated by Jamie's tomboyish sister Cersei meeting the blushing maiden he's to marry, and the two girls falling hard for each other.  Sort of Romeo and Juliet meets The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love (with a little sprinkle of Xena.)</p><p>A shameless fix-it fic for Cersei, to imagine how she might have turned out if she'd been stomped on by life just a bit less.</p><p>I've done some illustrations, which you can view here:<br/>http://sexghosts.tumblr.com/post/100602548442/so-after-some-nitpicking-heres-all-the</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sounds of merriment can still be dimly heard from the Great Room at Casterly Rock, even from way outside.  Catelyn had not wanted to join her family on this visit.  She understands that yes, she is sixteen, it is past time that she weds, and in order for the decision to made about which house she is to wed, everyone has to meet and she has to be seen.  But it makes it no less tiresome a chore.  She has wandered away from supper and the cloying attentions of some Lannister cousin or other and is looking for a way to get down closer to the water.  It is rare she gets to spend time near the ocean, and it calls to her.

She’s stopped on a landing that is well away from the main levels of the castle but still frustratingly far from the shoreline, and the steps just seem to lead down to a walkway that runs in the opposite direction from the water.  She looks around, feeling thwarted, when she sees a tall, slender figure in breeches and a doublet coming down the stone steps.  Relieved, she prepares to wave him down. Only as the figure draws closer, she realizes it is not a man at all, but a girl, surprisingly tall, hair of gold, about her own age, dressed in boys’ clothing.  The clothes are a little big and hang on her in odd ways, as if they might belong to an older brother or something.  As she draws closer still, she sees the girl is stunningly beautiful, in a way that is distinctly Lannister.  She saunters over to Catelyn, smiling, but Catelyn can feel herself being sized up nonetheless.

“You’re the Tully girl, aren’t you?” She says. “Catelyn, is it?”

Catelyn nods.

“You poor thing, cousin Corvin was trying to chat you up at dinner, wasn’t he?”

Catelyn smiles.  “Oh, is that his name?  He was quite persistent.”

“He’s an ass.”

Catelyn tries not to laugh.  Now she recognizes the girl… she hadn’t been formally introduced at dinner and she’d been dressed… well, rather differently.  “You’d be Lord Tywin’s daughter, Cersei, then?”

“That’s right.” The girl nods. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail, but even during her short trip down the stairs, the wind has buffeted her enough that several strands have been pulled loose and float around her face, seeming uninterested in doing her bidding as she absently tries to tuck them behind her ear. “You look lost.”

“Well, I was trying to get down to the water, but these stairs don’t seem to go anywhere near it,” Catelyn says, still trying to figure out why the daughter of the wealthiest man in the Seven Kingdoms would be dressed in this getup. It isn’t just breeches and doublet either; she’s wearing a great, wide belt with a smallish sword tucked into it, doeskin boots, and a cloak with a hood that hangs down her shoulders. Catelyn can’t help it, she has to ask: “Why are you dressed like that?”

Cersei smiles and Catelyn finds something overwhelmingly feline about it. “I’m about to go off and get into some trouble.” Her eyes continue assessing Catelyn, darting around across her face, clothes, hands, and hair. “Would you like to come with me ?” she asks, her mouth twitching a little as if she can barely contain the tales of what she’s got planned.

Catelyn is fascinated. “What sort of trouble?” she finds herself asking, surprising herself. Her hand unconsciously slips up to cover her mouth for a moment. But before Cersei can answer, she says, “Oh, I’d better not.”

“Do you always do what you’re supposed to?” Cersei demands.

Catelyn shifts uncomfortably.  “House Tully.  Family, duty, honor, you know.”

Cersei smirks and raises an eyebrow. “Suit yourself.” She looks out at the water. “Here, I’ll escort you down to the water if you like, but you mustn’t tell my father you’ve seen me. Can you do that?”

Catelyn smiles. “Alright. I promise.  I’ll not breathe a word of it.”

She follows Cersei down the path, and then off of it, to a set of stones that might be generously referred to as “steps” that cut a path through the woods and brush down toward the water. It is so narrow that they must go single file. Cersei, in her men’s garb, slips easily down the stones. But Catelyn in her skirts is getting caught on branches and brambles every other moment. She is finding it treacherous and tiring, and when her petticoats get caught on a branch for what feels like the hundredth time, she finally calls to Cersei, “I’m sorry, Lady Lannister, I’m stuck yet again and I fear I may need to rest a moment.”

Cersei, several steps ahead of her, turns back, looking slightly impatient. But she bounds lightly back up the stones to where Catelyn is stuck. She looks at the red-haired girl’s frustrated expression, and appears to internally choose to shelve some pointed remark. “Well, that’s what wearing dresses gets us. Stuck.” She winks at Catelyn and then kneels down and begins to work the hem of Catelyn’s dress free from the thorny branch.

Catelyn, feeling a little awkward with Cersei kneeling at her feet, asks again: “So, what sort of trouble _are_ you planning to get into tonight?”

Cersei stops and looks up. “You can’t tell anyone,” she warns.

“Of course,” Catelyn promises.

She goes back to working on freeing Catelyn’s skirt. “I’m going down into the village. Going to a tavern, I should think.”

“Dressed as a boy? Do you actually fool anyone like that?”

Cersei stands up. “Well, it used to be easier. Before I had these.” Smirking, she gestures to her breasts, which are not really very well concealed by the doublet.

Catelyn looks at them, blushes a little when she realizes she’s looking at them, and says, “But it can’t be just that. I mean, you’re … Well, beautiful, really. I don’t see how anyone could possibly mistake you for a man.”

Cersei looks at her a moment. “You’re sweet,” she says, almost as if it is not in reply to Catelyn telling her she is beautiful, but as a detached observation. “Regardless, if I keep my cloak and hood on, I can get away with it for a bit.”

She turns and heads back down, this time taking Catelyn by the hand and helping her down the stones. She doesn’t get caught again. As the brush opens up onto sand, Cersei says, grinning a little mischievously, “In fact, I’ve been occasionally the target of some tavern girls trying to work their wiles on me.”

Catelyn laughs out loud. She steps down onto the sand, sinking into it. “What did you do?”

“Played along for as long as I could get away with it, of course,” Cersei replies.

Catelyn doesn’t believe her. “Really, now. What would you even say to them?”

Cersei puts her hands on her hips and affects a lowborn accent and deeper voice. She marches up to Catelyn with a ridiculously exaggerated swagger. “Oi, Tully. I, uh, I like the uh, the shape o’ yer shank, right. I’ve got me haycart parked outside, what say we go off and, uh, have a shag in the back of it?”

Catelyn’s hand slips up to cover her mouth again, and she’s blushing and laughing so hard she almost can’t breathe. She can’t begin to imagine that sort of thing coming out of her own mouth. “You’re absolutely mad,” she gasps between waves of laughter. “You don’t actually talk to anyone that way! I don’t believe you!”

Cersei is grinning now. “Only tavern girls. I wouldn’t try such nonsense on you.”

Catelyn is taking several deep breaths, looking at Cersei’s laughing eyes, which seem to hold the sea in them. “Oh,” she sighs, “what a disappointment.”

Cersei gives her a crooked smile. “No, a proper lady like you? I’d have to be far more genteel.”

She snaps off a tender branch of honeysuckles that hangs from the brush. She makes a deep, sweeping bow, offering the fragrant branch to Catelyn, who is still trying to calm down from her last wave of laughter. Catelyn takes it, and breathes the sweet fragrance.

Cersei affects a deep voice again, this time trying to sound like her dashing, handsome brother. “Milady,” she says, “please accept these flowers as a token of my undying affections.”

She takes Catelyn’s hand and kisses it. Catelyn’s stomach does a little flip flop. She laughs and desperately hopes she’s not turning any redder than she has been. “Oh, they’re lovely, good Ser knight,” she replies merrily.

“Not half so lovely as you, milady,” Cersei says, still in character, still holding Catelyn’s hand, her look brimming with the best sort of trouble.

They pause and look at each other for a moment, high from laughing. Then Cersei says in her silly, deep knight’s voice, “I shall instruct my squire to bring my haycart around. May I invite your ladyship for a shag in the back of it?”

They begin laughing anew, and Cersei suddenly leans in and kisses Catelyn full on the lips. Catelyn’s heart quickens; this has all just been play, hasn’t it? Because in truth, this beautiful girl’s kiss seems so very earnest just now. Her lips feel wonderfully soft and taste of cinnamon cake, and she is aware of Cersei’s hand having settled lightly on her cheek. She closes her eyes, smells the honeysuckles and listens to the sound of the waves rolling in and out against the sand, and does all she can think to do, which is return the kiss.  Her hand drifts up to Cersei’s shoulder and rests there.

After a few seconds, they part. Catelyn is startled, and she can feel her cheeks are flushed and warm. She looks away from Cersei, nervous and trying not to giggle foolishly.

Cersei is enjoying Catelyn’s maidenly reserve, and enjoying even more getting to rumple it a bit, and her expression does not bother to hide either of these facts. “Come now, Catelyn Tully, surely you’ve been kissed before.”

“Of course I have,” Catelyn replies a little too quickly.  Really, it has only been a few times, and chaste ones as that, being the virtuous sort of girl that she is.  “Just not quite… like this.”

Cersei is barely able to contain her amusement.  “That’s alright.  Me neither.  In fact, I don’t think we got it quite right.  Let’s try again.”

She kisses Catelyn again and this time, Catelyn feels the tip of Cersei’s tongue darting against her lips, gently requesting entry.  She parts her lips and lets her in.  This second kiss is deeper and warmer than the first, and she feels her heartbeat quicken. Catelyn reaches around and undoes Cersei’s ponytail so that she can get her hands into her golden waves.  Cersei’s hands slip around Catelyn’s waist and she draws their bodies closer together.  Catelyn takes a moment to let herself sink in against Cersei, then pulls back and looks up at her.  “You really do feel completely and entirely delicious,” she says, looking at Cersei’s straw-gold hair getting blown about by the wind.

“You’re not so bad either,” Cersei answers with a wink, and then leans back in for another kiss.

Catelyn’s hand strays down to Cersei’s waist and settles on the hilt of the small sword in her belt.  She stops and asks, “Now, I’ve got to know, is that a real sword in your belt?”

Cersei’s mouth, her delicious, soft, twitchy mouth, smiles devilishly.  “No,” she snickers, “I’m just happy to see you.”

“What?”  Then she puts together Cersei’s meaning and begins to laugh again, shouting, “Oh, Gods!  No!”

They stand in the wind, listening to the breathing of the tide, with the sun going down in dusty gold and purple tones behind them, exchanging light, gentle kisses, for a few minutes more.

“Still going to go down and get into trouble tonight?” Catelyn finally asks.

“I’ve already gotten into all the trouble I need for one evening, I’d say,” Cersei answers contentedly.  She strokes Catelyn’s face and settles a finger on her lovely, strong chin.  “How long will you and your family be staying?”

“I’m not sure.  I imagine a week or so.”

“Good,” Cersei says with satisfaction.  “Shall I come fetch you tomorrow so that we might go do something more… ladylike?”

Catelyn can’t quite believe what’s happened.  “I… yes, I think that would be quite nice.”

Cersei kisses her once more, and then looks at her, and then over her shoulder at the darkening sky.  “I’d best get you back up to your chamber.   I don’t want a proper lady like yourself getting into any trouble with her father.”

Catelyn looks down at her dress, the hem of which is quite bedraggled at this point; slightly ripped in a few places and caked with sand and sea salt, since she had neglected holding onto her skirts when Cersei began to kiss her.  “I’m already in trouble, I expect,” she says unhappily.

“Well, let’s not make it any worse.”

Cersei escorts her back to the upper levels and directs her back to her room.  She kisses her one more time, briefly, before she slips away.  Catelyn’s father is very unhappy at the condition of Catelyn’s dress, but she doesn’t care.  She goes to bed, dreaming of soft, warm kisses that taste like cinnamon cake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teenage Catelyn and Cersei continue to fall adorably, madly in love.

Cersei and Catelyn spend the next day together, touring Casterly rock.  With its many landings above and warrens below, it is easily an all-day affair.  They walk across many sun-splashed stone gardens and spend time watching the boats streaming in and out of Lannisport, their colorful sails gliding over the water like low-flying birds.  They walk arm in arm, as is often seen among the noble ladies who share friendship and affection, and nobody is any the wiser.  Nobody notices Cersei brushing the back of her hand against Catelyn's ribs when she's holding on to her upper arm, or Catelyn pressing a thumb into the soft crook of Cersei's elbow, warm and deliberate; nobody hears the occasional sharp little breaths one of them draws when the other's touch hits its intended mark.  
  
They take lunch on an immaculately landscaped terrace, drinking wine and eating roast quail in the sunshine.  Catelyn finds Cersei as easy to look at when she's dressed in skirts as she was when she was in breeches the night before.  Catelyn suggests staying here for a while.  "Perhaps we can tarry in the shade over there?  We can send your ladies to fetch us some embroidery?"  
  
Cersei makes a gagging face.  
  
"No embroidery, then?"  
  
"Only for you would I subject myself to it," Cersei sighs, and sends a handmaiden to fetch them some silks and threads.  "I'm terrible at it.  And I hate it."  
  
"Well, I'm afraid neither of us is dressed for swordplay."  
  
Soon enough, they are sitting together in the shade chatting about sailing and hunting and poetry, as Catelyn begins pulling a fine silver thread through blue cloth, deftly stitching the House Tully trout from memory.  Cersei is trying to work a gold floss through some red fabric and is growing irritated with her results, which are full of pulled threads and uneven stitches.  Catelyn looks at Cersei's fingers, which are pressed white around the needle, and shakes her head.  She sets her own kit down and reaches across to Cersei, softly lighting her fingers on the back of her hand.  "Can I help you?  You're holding far too tightly."  
  
Cersei looks up, and seeing Catelyn's wide blue eyes and gentle smile, un-knits her brows.  "Alright."  
  
Cat plucks the needle from her fingers, and gives them a little squeeze to relax them.  She then places the needle back between her thumb and forefinger, looking intently into her face and explaining how and where her hand, fingers and wrist should bend and turn, and illustrating each point by lightly stroking her fingers over them in an entirely unnecessary and delightfully teasing manner that makes the hairs on Cersei's arms stand up.  Catelyn is a little surprised at her own boldness.  And Cersei is looking rather enamored of needles and thread by the time Catelyn is finished with her explanation.  Cersei sets to her embroidering with renewed energy.  Catelyn notices Tywin Lannister looking approvingly down on them from an upper terrace.  He thinks I am teaching his little tomboy to be a proper lady, she thinks with great amusement.  
  
Cersei's stitching is actually much improved after Catelyn's help, but then inevitably, she pokes the needle into one of her fingers and yelps, "Shit!"  It is not a deep puncture, but a little red bead of blood blooms up onto the soft pad of her fingertip.  
  
Cousin Corvin chooses this particular moment to stride up.  Catelyn can see his lips brimming with used-up compliments that have clearly been rehearsed and lain at the feet of many a young lady.  "Are you mortally wounded, cousin?" he asks, clearly thinking himself terribly clever.  
  
Cersei does not bother to hide her irritation at his presence.  "Oh," she says quite pointedly, "it's just a little prick."  
  
If Corvin is aware of the insult, he ignores it. He slides himself onto the stone bench next to Catelyn, and grins at her with too much tooth. "My Lady Tully," he croons, "You're twice as pretty in the sunlight."  
  
Cersei makes vomiting faces behind his back, which makes it difficult for Catelyn to keep her cool. "Lord Corvin," she says politely.  
  
"And what are the two loveliest ladies in Casterly Rock discussing on this fine afternoon?"  
  
"Why don't you go find them and let us know at supper," Cersei says with such chill in her voice that Catelyn is almost made uneasy by it.  
  
Catelyn smiles at him sweetly. "Actually, we were discussing Umbry Norritt. I was just saying, I feel his decision to switch from pentameter to tetrameter in the final book of The Weirwife's Ballad was a very deliberate creative decision, meant to highlight the shift from the Ancients to the Age of Heroes ... Don't you agree?" She smiles innocently and expectantly at him.  
  
Corvin pauses awkwardly, his face displaying his internal struggle to keep his smile tacked on. "Er, of course, you are correct, my lady," he agrees gamely, though it's evident that he hasn't the first clue what she's talking about. Another rich-boy lord who never paid attention to his studies. He fishes a moment and comes up with, "Norritt made the, ah, best possible use of such a technique."  
  
Cersei has enjoyed Catelyn's little gambit, but chooses the efficient route. "Corvin, if Lady Catelyn is to be engaged to any Lannister, it's going to be my brother Jamie, you half-wit. Now piss off and go find yourself a seamstress or a cook to impress with your tatty drivel before I tear off your shrunken little balls and feed them to you."  
  
Her voice is so frosty and her eyes so flashing and fierce, Corvin goes paler by a shade before standing up and stammeringly excusing himself with a string of random words that don't quite stitch together to make a thought.  
  
In the awkward silence that follows, Catelyn is looking at Cersei, awestruck.  
  
"What?" Cersei says grumpily. "He's a stupid, irritating boor. You have to be polite to him, but I don't."  
  
Catelyn smiles hesitantly. "I know all Lannisters fancy themselves to have lions' hearts, but you... You truly do.  That was... quite something."  
  
Cersei's fierceness instantly melts into fondness as she looks at her gentle, courteous friend. "I had to protect you," she says simply.  
  
Catelyn lets those words wash over her and feels suddenly warm. "Can we ...go somewhere?"  
  
The corner of Cersei's mouth creeps into that half-smile that makes Catelyn's breathing feel tight. "Where did you have in mind?" she asks.  
  
"I don't care, just someplace... Not here." Her voice has a tinge of urgency to it. "We shall have to hurry, too, or I'm going to kiss you on the mouth in full view of your father and whoever else happens by."  
  
Cersei's smile broadens. She jumps up, takes Catelyn's hand and they scurry away from the table, clutching their skirts and leaving their half-stitched lion and trout to be finished another time.  
  
Cersei's original intent was to run up to her chambers but as they run down the corridor, it seems impossibly far just now. The girls duck into a little apse, so small there's barely room for them both, its dome so low it almost touches the tops of their heads, and they kiss furiously. Each time they hear footsteps approaching, they pull themselves apart and stand there snickering while Cersei makes some dreadful pretense of explaining the story of the paintings on the dome. Once the footsteps fade, they fall into each other's arms again, kissing, messing each other's hair, stifling conspiratorial giggling.  
  
Cersei looks at Catelyn affectionately. "Dutiful Catelyn," she purrs, stroking her cheek.  
  
"Ladylike Cersei," Catelyn answers.  
  
Cersei smiles slyly.  
  
"How did you know you could kiss me last night?" Catelyn asks suddenly.  
  
"Because you followed me all the way down to the water."  
  
Catelyn is incredulous. "So?"  
  
"A proper lady like you would have taken one look at those steps and begged off, unless she wanted to go down them for some other reason."  
  
"That reason being to spend fifteen minutes looking at the back of you?"  Cat prods.  
  
"If you like," Cersei mumbles into another soft kiss, and then stops.  "I could see you dying to know what I was up to.  I could tell how badly you wanted to do something you weren't supposed to.  And..."  She looks for a moment at Catelyn, trying to figure out how to say what she means.  "...you seemed perfectly content to let me play at being a boy.  You were curious, but not shocked, not put off... In fact you seemed to enjoy it."  
  
"I did," Catelyn sighs happily.  "I do.  You're quite charming as a boy."  
  
They embrace for a few minutes, and then Cersei pouts, "I don't want to let my brother have you."  
  
Catelyn gazes appreciatively at Cersei; her mane of straw-gold waves, her knowing eyes, silken lips, honey colored skin.  "I don't want to let anyone have you, my sweet, soft, delicious boy."  Then her brow furrows a little.  "But we do what we must, in the end."  
  
Cersei's face darkens a little.  They look at each other and for a moment, they see something in each other of the women they will one day become; Catelyn, the strong, dutiful lady, and Cersei, the proud and fearsome lioness.  It leaves them both feeling a little bit sad and unnerved.  
  
"Don't let's talk about it now," Catelyn whispers.  They have only a few more days to enjoy each others' company.  
  
Cersei nods.  "Let's don't," she agrees, trying to erase the bitterness that is nibbling at the edges of this moment.  She starts to try and smooth out all of the crazy wisps of Catelyn's hair which she has so thoroughly messed up.  "I love your hair," she says softly, stroking her dark red waves.  "I cannot think of anything that shares its hue."  
  
Catelyn, disarmed by her tenderness, says, "I'll come to you tomorrow morning. We shall braid each others' hair before breakfast."  
  
Cersei clearly enjoys that thought.  
  
That night finds them both struggling to sink into sleep, consumed with the idea of spending an hour alone in Cersei's chamber, running their fingers through each others' hair.  
  
   
  
[Part 3]


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teenage Catelyn & Cersei continue falling madly in love. End of chapter is mildly NSFW.

"I'm completely unpresentable," Catelyn frets, looking in the mirror.

"Come on, I didn't cock it up so much," Cersei protests, running her fingers over the mostly-neat, deep auburn plaits she's just finished.

"Your handiwork isn't the problem," Catelyn sighs. "It's my face. I'm all flushed." She continues scrutinizing her reflection. "I look drunk."

"No," Cersei corrects her, coming up behind her and slipping her arms around her waist, "you look aroused.  Like someone spent the better part of half an hour kissing the back of your neck while doing a half-assed job braiding your hair."

"That's not better!"

Cat splashes some water on her face from the basin on the vanity, and they head downstairs, hoping that by the time they arrive that the color in her cheeks will have somewhat subdued on its own.

As they approach the dining room, they hear their fathers' voices drifting out into the hall. "...and it seems our daughters have been thick as thieves since we arrived," Hoster Tully's voice is saying.

They stop to eavesdrop.

"Indeed," Tywin's voice replies. "I even spied them doing embroidery together yesterday, hardly Cersei's favorite pastime.  She rarely gets on well with girls her own age."

"Or anyone at all," Cersei whispers impishly to her. "I am a _bitch_."

"Too bad we can't marry them off to each other," Hoster chortles.

"Yes," Tywin answers, his voice sounding not nearly as amused as Hoster at that little joke. "Nevertheless, you and I certainly have more details to sort out as to whether this arrangement is going to go ahead, but in the meanwhile, I suggest that we arrange for Jamie and Catelyn to spend some time together today."

Hoster agrees. "Yes, that would be appropriate."

The girls look at each other with alarm.

"Well, whenever our slug-a-bed children manage to make their way down here, we'll inform them," Tywin says with finality.

*******

Jamie Lannister is as handsome as his sister is beautiful. He meets Catelyn at the stables and helps her select a gentle-looking chestnut mare to ride. "Dorry here is a sweet-tempered, docile beast, my lady. She'll be a fine ride for you." He helps her onto its back, then mounts his own white stallion. They take an easy gallop out to a wide dirt path that leads down the hill toward the shoreline.

It's a strange thing, chatting back and forth with him as they trot along beside the breaking waves.  It's pleasant, but he sizes her up in the same way that Cersei did the night they met.  He is intelligent and charming enough, and more than able to converse on history and poetry.  He shares so many of Cersei's features and facial expressions, including that cocky, crooked smile, but she can't help but notice that it doesn't make her pulse quicken the way it does when it plays across Cersei's lips.  Catelyn tries to imagine marrying him, kissing him, sharing his bed.  But all she can think of is his sister.

***

After supper, Catelyn is about to retire, feeling disappointed that she was not able to be near Cersei during the meal.  The two patriarchs had railroaded her and Jamie into sitting together, which was not unpleasant, but was also not where she wanted to be.   In the middle of her feeling slightly sorry about it, she hears a soft rapping at her window.  It's Cersei, dressed in her brother's clothes.  Catelyn is so pleased to see her that it takes her a moment after she throws the window open to absorb the fact that Cersei must have actually clambered up the column from the terrace below in order to get there.  "Are you out of your mind?" she whispers affectionately.

"It's possible.  But I couldn't very well come knocking on your door at this hour," Cersei answers, looking a little bit sweaty.  Her breath is still laboring from the climb. Catelyn puts a hand out and helps her climb in over the sash, looking at her in amazement. They stand there awkwardly for a moment.

"So, did you find my brother's company as pleasant as mine?" Cersei asks.  It's not clear if it's meant as a jab, a joke, or an honest question.

"Well, he's perfectly fine company, but I spent most of the time thinking about you, if I'm to be honest."

That smile comes slowly to Cersei's lips. "Did you, then?"

Catelyn nods, feeling a warmth bloom in her stomach.

Cersei slides her arms around Catelyn's waist and kisses her, and they spend the next several minutes that way, wrapped in each others' arms, pressing themselves to each other. Cersei pulls back and looks at her, eyes full of irresistible trouble. "I want you to come with me."

"What, now?"

Cersei nods. "Now."

"Where?"

"I'm not telling.  Come on. We have to hurry."

"I can't very well go out the way you came in," Catelyn starts to protest.

"You don't need to. We just need to be very quiet." She kisses Catelyn again. It is an obvious attempt to influence her decision, and it works.

Catelyn takes off her shoes to make her footsteps silent, and peers out of the chamber door. Satisfied that no-one is around to spy them going, they tiptoe out and down the hall. Cersei's hand is warm and soft in hers, and Cat's pulse flutters a little with excitement as she follows Cersei down one corridor and twisting stair after another in her stocking feet, carrying her shoes in her free hand.  They wind up in the stables, sneaking softly up on a cart which is hitched to a large, mottled black mare. "Tawley's leaving soon, we'd better get in."

Cersei hops up into the cart and pulls Catelyn, scrambling, up after her. They conceal themselves under a large burlap blanket. At this moment, Catelyn feels something scratchy against her cheek, and realizes that she is smelling hay. "Cersei?" she whispers.

"What?" Cersei whispers back.

"Is this a haycart?"

Cersei stifles a snicker. "Yes."

"I thought you were joking about that."

"I was. Sort of. Now stop talking or we'll be caught." Cersei kisses her again to stop any more words coming.

It feels like a long trip, but they arrive eventually at the docks in Lannisport, and slip out while Tawley is inside, signing off on his pickup. Catelyn slips her shoes back on and follows Cersei down the rows of piers till they arrive at one where a little sailboat is moored.  It's modest; it has only one mast, and is not heavily adorned the way many other nobles' pleasure boats are, instead being built with clean, graceful lines that taper to the front and a precision of craftsmanship that even Catelyn's eye can detect.

"She's mine," Cersei says with a note of pride.  "Well, mine and Jamie's."

Catelyn's face lights up. She's only been sailing a few times and is thrilled by being on the open water, feeling the largeness of it, tasting the salt in the air.  "Can we-?"

"Of course."

Cersei helps Catelyn aboard, and then pushes the boat out of the docking and toward the sea.  She tosses her cloak off and moves comfortably around the small craft, tying lines and checking various knots.  Catelyn watches her, entranced.  She'd not bothered with a doublet or tunic tonight, instead striding around in leggings and only a thigh-length men's shift that laces up at the neck, although she doesn't seem to have taken that lacing business very seriously.  A lock of hair escapes her ponytail and hangs at her cheek as she bends down, concentrating on something that Catelyn can't quite make out.  Catelyn at first tries not to stare at her, the thoughtful pout of her lips, at the way the wind blows the shift against the curves of her waist and breast, but she gives up soon enough and lets herself watch with undiluted pleasure.

Cersei looks over at her, basking in the warmth of her gaze.  She straightens up, grabs a line, and starts to pull.  The sail begins to unfurl, white and gold against the dark sky.  She ties it off, and it fills with breezes that begin to pull the little boat along.

"You're very good at this," Catelyn says with admiration.

"I'm not bad," Cersei answers, clearly knowing she's more than that.  She pulls a bottle of wine from a chest and opens it.  "Sorry, no glasses," she says.  They pass the bottle back and forth, sipping from it, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the waves as they glide over the calm waters, farther from shore.  The purpling sky feels enormous, with stars scattered thick across its expanse.

"My father insisted that the boat was for both me and my brother because he knew I liked to be on the water, but wanted my brother to be the one to sail it.  I've never been ladylike enough for him.  Fortunately, Jamie couldn't begin to give a damn, and showed me how to do everything myself."

"He seems to love you."

Cersei smiles fondly.  "Yes.  These are his clothes, after all."

"I think they look better on you."

Cersei enjoys her open flirtation.  "My mother always gave me a little place to do as I liked," she says with a sigh, pulling at the rudder a little bit.  "She used to say, _You can take a little time to go play at boy things with your brother, so long as you can be a proper lady when it matters._ She never tried to stamp it out of me the way my father does.  I miss her still.  There is not a day that passes that I do not wish she had not given her life birthing Tyrion."

Cat puts a hand on her arm.  "My mother also died on the birthing bed, but I was very small.  I hardly remember her at all."

Cersei's face looks bitter now, and Catelyn sees that fierceness come into her eyes.  "Doesn't it ever bother you, Cat?  Don't you ever rail at the fact that that is our lot?  To be passed around, traded as brood mares, silenced, treated as lesser, dying in childbirth only to be replaced?  How do you swallow it?  It drives me mad sometimes."

Catelyn strokes her back softly.  "Men give their lives up in wars.  They are no less bound to the unpleasant duties of their sex than we are.  You and I, we will be mothers to noble lords of great houses, and we will teach them to seek wives who are wise and brave, we will teach them to seek their counsel, we will train them up to believe that if their little girls should wish to swing a sword, there is no shame in it.  That is the only way that things change."

Cersei looks at her.  "Family, duty, honor," she sighs dryly.

Catelyn places her arms around Cersei and kisses her shoulder.  "I meant what I said yesterday, Cersei.  You do have a lion's heart.  You will be a great lady someday, in your own way.  I shouldn't wonder if they will sing songs about you."

Cersei leans into Catelyn's embrace, the tightness of anger draining from her body as she does so.  "How is it that you calm me so?" she sighs.  She looks around and realizes that they've gotten about as far out to sea as they really ought to go, so she reluctantly pulls away from Catelyn and lowers the sail, letting the boat sit still in the water.  They are far from everything.

She pulls some thick blankets from the chest and spreads them out on the deck.  They lie down, side by side, talking quietly, holding hands, looking up at the stars and drinking from the bottle of wine.  Cersei points out all the stars whose names she knows.  Catelyn recites a few stanzas she can recall from The Weirwife's Ballad.  After a while, they fall silent and listen to the soft lapping of the waves against the sides of the boat.

Cersei leans over and kisses her softly.  "My lady," she murmurs.

"My sweet, soft, beautiful boy," Catelyn murmurs back.

"What shall we do with all of this?"

"I don't know," Catelyn answers quietly.  "But kiss me again."

She does.  She begins to plant kisses all down the side of Catelyn's neck, listening to her sighing.  Catelyn's hand slips Cersei's shift down off of one shoulder and strokes her soft skin.  Cersei's kisses grow warmer and more insistent, her lips moving down to Catelyn's chest just above the scooping neckline of her gown.  "You," Catelyn whispers.

"What," Cersei whispers back, between kisses.

"You are making me feel..." she trails off helplessly. She can't explain.

Cersei smiles.  "I know."  She slips a finger inside the neckline of Catelyn's dress.  "I think you're wearing too many clothes."

Catelyn hesitates.  "I cannot... I have never..." she flounders.

Cersei looks at her sweetly.  Poised, perfect Catelyn is speechless.  "Dear, virtuous Cat.  Tell me what you want to do."

Catelyn looks at Cersei's shift, the laces of which are more or less hanging loose now, and she's filled with an urge to see what lies beneath.  "I want to touch you," she says quietly, and her voice catches a little.

"Where?" Cersei asks her gently.

Catelyn eyes her chest.  "There... under your shift."

"Alright," Cersei says, smiling tenderly at her.  She slips it easily over her head and lies down next to her again, bare chested.  Catelyn's eyes are wide at the sight of it.  She places one hand lightly on one of Cersei's breasts, taking a moment to feel the heat coming from her skin.

"They're as beautiful as the rest of you," Catelyn breathes softly.  She has never even touched her own breasts except when bathing or stuffing them into a bodice or gown.  She brushes her fingers over it lightly, and feels a little wave of satisfaction when the rosy nipple grows hard and she sees Cersei's eyes close in a moment that looks like pure surrender.  She continues, her touches growing more sure by the moment as she sees the effect of each touch, each stroke, each different pressure she applies.  She is besotted with the look of abandon and joy she brings to Cersei's lovely face.

She feels herself growing warmer by the moment, too.   Suddenly her gown is starting to feel far too thick and heavy, and she wants to be rid of it and feel the sea air on her bare arms and shoulders. "Unlace me," she whispers.  Cersei is quick to comply, and helps her slip out of her gown.  She then moves to pull Catelyn's long shift over her head, but Catelyn stops her.  "I... I don't think I can."

"It's alright," Cersei whispers, and kisses her. She goes back to basking in Catelyn's attentions, her desire growing hotter.

"How does it feel?" Catelyn asks.

"Can I show you?"

Their breaths are harder now.  Catelyn hesitates again.  "Just... tell me."

"Like honey," Cersei says, breathless. "Like fire. You're making me ache to feel you everywhere."

Catelyn begins kissing her hotly, tongue searching, teeth nibbling, sucking softly at Cersei's lips. She's filled with a wild, sweet wanting that consumes her like nothing she's felt before.  _This is lust,_ she thinks, _this is desire._ It is an unexpected, powerful feeling.  She now understands why epic poems are written, why lives are ruined and fortunes lost because of it.

"Tell me what you want," Cersei begs again.

"I want to feel you..." Catelyn struggles for words.

Cersei lies on top of her and their passionate kisses continue.  "Like this?"

Catelyn nods, breathing harder at the intoxicating feeling of Cersei's weight on her.  She pulls Cersei's hair out of the ponytail and watches it fall around her face and down her bare back.  It feels like the most perfect thing she has ever seen.

They lie in the moonlight, their mouths searching each others', their legs entwined, moving softly against each other, with quiet little moans and sighs.  Catelyn feels Cersei's thigh pressed up against her sex, and she can't help but move against it, the heat and pleasure growing.  "You are making me feel..." she says again, but has no words to finish.

Cersei has become similarly inarticulate.  She gazes down into Catelyn's eyes.  "You are beautiful," she manages to sigh.

And then a moment comes that Catelyn could not have had explained to her by anyone.  A moment of such great pleasure that when it is through, she cannot bear any more of it.  She clutches tightly to Cersei, moaning from it, sighing, repeating Cersei's name over and over.  A few moments later, Cersei seems to experience the same.  They kiss deeply and softly; their breathing slows.

They drift off to sleep under the stars.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catelyn loses the courage of her convictions.

Catelyn's eyes are still closed when she begins feeling little water droplets hitting her face and shoulders.  She slowly climbs toward consciousness, first aware of the droplets -- _Oh, it's raining,_ she thinks-- and then aware of Cersei's warm skin, and then her scent that somehow mingles leather and flowers.  She remains blissful for a moment more, her cheek resting on Cersei's warm breast, and shifts a little against her.  But then the water droplets start hitting her again, and so she nudges Cersei a little bit.  "Cersei," she murmurs softly, her eyes still closed, "I think it's raining."

"Hmm," is all Cersei can manage just yet.

"It's not raining, I'm trying to wake you up."  It's Jamie's voice, sounding mildly annoyed.

The two girls are suddenly very much awake.  Catelyn opens her eyes and sees Jamie standing over them in the boat, flicking water on their faces.  She sits up in a panic, realizing she's lying there in nothing but a shift, and pulls the blankets over herself.  "Jamie!  What... what are you...?"

Cersei moves with slightly less urgency but still isn't happy about being woken this way.  After wearily pulling her shift back on, she looks out at the horizon.  There's a faint lightening of the sky at the very bottom edge of it.  The sun won't be up for a little while yet, but they have spent far too much time sleeping.

He shakes his head.  "Cersei," he scolds, "I was waiting ashore with the horses for over two hours.  I finally had to borrow the shoreman's boat to come look for you.  You were only supposed to take her for a little spin around the bay."  He sighs.

Cersei scowls.  Catelyn is still cringing beneath the blanket, panicked, and now also confused.  She looks over and sees another small craft bobbing beside them.

"Now, we have to hurry up.  We haven't much time."  He pulls a leather pack off his shoulder and reaches inside.  "I'm guessing you didn't bring any proper clothes with you, Cersei, so I've brought your green gown."

"The green with with the lace, or the embroidered front?"

"The lace."

"I hate that one."

He tosses the gown onto the deck in front of her.  "Thank you, Jamie," he needles her.  "I'm so glad you had the forethought to bring some proper clothing for me to wear after I slept far too long, half-naked, in our boat, with your future wife."

Catelyn is looking back and forth between them nervously.

Cersei looks at her brother and then breaks into laughter.  "Poor, long-suffering Jamie.  I'm sorry we kept you waiting.  Give us a few moments to put ourselves in order and we'll meet you at the pier house."

He shakes his head again, sighing, but he only seems annoyed, not angry, not shocked at the state he found them in.  He climbs back into the shoreman's boat and heads back toward the docks.

As Catelyn struggles back into her gown, she demands of Cersei, "You planned to have him meet us with horses?  What have you told him?"

Cersei winces a little.  "Well... everything."

"Why?" Catelyn's voice is cool, pointed.

"Jamie and I have no secrets."

"It would have been good of you to let me know that."  The fact that someone outside the two of them is aware of what has been happening terrifies Catelyn.

Cersei, wrangling with her own dress, seems caught off guard by Catelyn's sudden steeliness.  "Catelyn, he is my twin brother.  We shared a womb.  He'd never betray us."

"You still should have told me," Catelyn says curtly, and that is the end of the matter.

On the ride back, Catelyn is silent.  Jamie and Cersei joust back and forth, their interplay both tender and a little prickly.  Sometimes she can hear beneath their teenage voices the dispositions of little five year olds tumbling in the dirt together or fighting over a toy.

But Catelyn is too shaken to enjoy the sweetness of it.  Her immediate reaction when she'd seen Jamie standing there was to feel ashamed.  It comes to her as a cold, unwelcome slap of reality: whatever this is between her and Cersei, it is exciting, intoxicating, and absolutely, completely against her notions of honor, duty, and gods forbid, virtue.

The sun is up by the time they reach Casterly Rock, and they make a graceless entry into the dining hall, late for breakfast.  Tywin and Hoster both look annoyed, but Jamie is smooth enough that it seems their story about a morning ride on the beach is grudgingly accepted.  Catelyn is uncomfortably silent for the entire meal, and excuses herself to her chamber, complaining of a headache.

 

******

 

A few hours later, Catelyn hears tapping on her door.

"I'm not feeling well," she calls miserably.  She is curled up in bed. She has been crying off and on for a while now, and feels wrung out.

"I know," comes Cersei's voice from behind the door.  "I came to see if you might want some tea."

"No, thank you," Catelyn says.

There's a pause.

"Well... May I come in?"

Catelyn's voice starts to wobble a bit.  "I really... don't feel up to company just now, Cersei.  I'm sorry."  She bites her lip to hold back more tears.

Another, longer pause.  She half wants to open the door, but doesn't trust herself.  Because as dearly as she wants to hang onto what remains of her virtue, she also wants to let Cersei in, lock the door and pull her down into the bed.  She wants to know what those soft lips and smooth hands feel like on every last inch of her skin.

"It might make you feel better," Cersei's voice comes a moment later, sounding uncertain, trying to keep the pleading tone out of it. "I could... I could read you some Norritt, if you like. We have an excellent library." Catelyn can hear that there is much more Cersei wants to say that she will not risk saying through the door.

But she cannot let her in. She gets out of bed and walks to the heavy door, pressing her forehead against it. "Cersei, please. I just... I can't now. I'm sorry."

Cersei says something so quietly that it is inaudible through the heavy door.  Then her footsteps vanish down the corridor.

Miserable, aching, and confused, Catelyn trudges back to her bed, cudgeling herself profusely for allowing this to happen.

It's Hoster who rouses her an hour later, knocking on the door and then calling to her through it. "Catelyn!  It's becoming rather late. You've missed lunch.  If you're still unwell, we must ask Lord Tywin to send for a Maester. Will that be necessary?"

Catelyn sits up in bed. "I suppose not," she says resignedly.  What's wrong with her is nothing that a Maester can fix.

"Good," her father says briskly. "Jamie mentioned wanting to take you around the  grounds a bit before supper."

She does not want to go, but cannot say so. "Alright," she says, trying not to sound too unhappy. "Can you send him word to meet me in the sept in an hour? I need to straighten up a bit."

She dresses quickly, then sweeps her hair up off her neck and pins it in a style that requires minimal effort. It makes her look older, she thinks. And more respectable than she actually feels at the moment.

 

*****

 

Catelyn finds a spot in a patch of colored light from a stained glass window, and kneels down, quietly reciting prayers under her breath. She has always been observant, learned her prayers and hymns, but has never felt that The Seven spoke to her, never felt their presence the way some seem to.  The lessons and rituals have value enough.  But none seem useful to her now.

"Your piety is admirable," Jamie's voice comes from the back of the sept.

Catelyn looks over her shoulder.  "That's not what this is."

He walks over the where she's kneeling and kneels beside her with a knowing look.  "Of course.  It's despair.  I spend a lot more time in this sept than you might guess."

Catelyn's eyebrows lift.  "You?  The handsome scion of the wealthiest family in the kingdoms?  What could you possibly have to despair?"

Jamie smiles mirthlessly. "A problem not very different from yours.  We all of us have some secret burden."

They sit quietly for a minute.

"Catelyn, my sister is everything to me.  I need her to be happy.  I've never seen her as happy as these last few days with you. She's beside herself that you are shutting her out."

She looks at him with guilty eyes.

"I have never felt anything like it myself," Catelyn admits sadly. "And yet...I cannot help feeling I am selfish and sinful to want it."

"Family, duty, honor, eh?"  He sighs, and runs a hand through his long, straw-gold hair. "When talk of our betrothal became serious, Catelyn, I began rehearsing in my mind the conversation we would have. I would be telling you that while I intended to be a dutiful husband and honor you in all things, that I would not be able to give you my heart, because I love someone else."

Catelyn looks at him, curious. "Another man?" she guesses.

Jamie chuckles a little. "No, not that. But, I assure you, my father would be no less displeased."

Her stare remains level. "Who, then?"

Jamie's face suddenly shows what looks like years of grief carried in silence.  He lets out a long, thick breath, as if literally heaving the weight of the sky off of himself.  "Catelyn, the duty we owe our families is to produce children.  As for your duty to me, I would ask only one thing of you." His look is raw torment now. "Love my sister. Love her as she needs to be loved. Love her as I cannot."

Catelyn studies him for a long moment. She thinks she understands him, but doesn't push, in part because she doesn't want him to confirm her suspicions, and in part because he seems so pained that she would not press him to say more than he can bear. She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Truly? You would want this from me?"

"Cersei is fearless, she has great passion, but she wounds easily, and her anger often burns too hot. She needs someone strong, someone steady, to keep her from getting too lost in it. She needs _you_ , Catelyn."

Catelyn bites her lip.  She drags a hand down her face as if trying to rub clarity of thought into her head.  "I am no model of temperance myself just now. I'm no longer certain I can even call myself a virtuous woman," she sighs.

"Well," he answers carefully, "I've little counsel to offer you on that. Boys are taught rather differently than girls. If your maidenhood or your chastity are important to you, well and good. But that is no factor in how I choose to value you as my wife. We are adults, now. We must draw our own lines. And we must define for ourselves what words like family, duty and honor truly mean."

Catelyn looks up into the vaulted ceiling of the sept, but there are no answers to be found there. "I have been expected all my life to be a very particular person.  And I have been, in large measure.  And now, I feel as though suddenly, I do not know myself."

Jamie places a hand on her shoulder. "You are still Catelyn Tully. And that means you will do what is right."

Jamie's words leave her too much to grapple with.  She stands up.  "Let's go and walk around like you told my father we were going to.  I don't want to make a liar out of you."

He smiles and stands up.  "Oh!" he says, reaching into a pocket on his doublet.  "She wanted me to give you this."  He pulls out a piece of purple fabric and hands it to her.  She unfolds it.  Stitched into it, slightly messy in places, but recognizable, is an outline of a little sailboat, and a number of little silver floss knot-stars in the sky above it. It's impossible to mistake Cersei's tortured stitching, though Catelyn's eye can detect a number of little pinholes where she went back and pulled out some stitches and redid them more neatly.

Catelyn's eyes well up as she clutches the gift.  She quickly composes herself and tucks it into the neckline of her gown.  Jamie takes her arm.  "Let's go, my lady."

They head toward the enormous double doors leading out of the sept and as they walk, Jamie suddenly looks at her and asks.  "A man?  Really?  Do I seem like a pillow-biter to you? Is it the hair? Because I've been wondering if I should cut it."

Catelyn is beginning to recognize his humor, and she gives him a slight, cheeky smile.  "One can never tell, my lord."

"Yes, one can.  You obviously have never met Renly Baratheon."

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young love at its sweetest.

Cersei is not at supper. "It seems she is afflicted with whatever laid you low this morning," Tywin says to Catelyn. She worries that he senses something amiss between her and Cersei. But she reminds herself that it's probably just her own fears, keeps her poise as ever, assures him that it passed in but a few hours for her, and that Cersei will soon be right again. She sits with Jamie, conversing warmly, and this time the warmth is not for show.

They leave together, and as soon as they have taken a few steps, he takes her hand and presses something into it.  She opens it and sitting in her palm is a large, heavy iron key.  She looks at him quizzically.

"It's a room key.  You don't seem like the balcony-scaling type," he says, smiling.

Her heart beats a little harder.  "I'm supposed to just... barge in?"

"Of course," he says with breezy cheer, "she does it to me all the time."

 

******

 

Jamie had seemed surprised when Catelyn asked to borrow his dagger, but relinquished it after she explained.  She'd made her way down the steps to the shoreline, down to the place in the sand where she and Cersei had first stood, laughing and kissing in the sunset.  She'd cut a branch of honeysuckle, and then another.  And then another, until her arms were full of them.  It was more than she knew what to do with.  More than she could reasonably carry.  She took off her cloak and lay it down in the sand, and bundled them all into it before making her way back up the steps.  She'd gotten a few curious looks from a few servants as she made her way through the halls, but she'd made it there without incident.  It was funny, she hadn't noticed till just this moment that the honeysuckle blossoms here were impressive in size, nearly twice the size of the ones at home.  _Perhaps it is the seawater,_ she muses.

And now she stands in front of Cersei's door, and it has taken her so long to gather the branches that it has become quite late.  She takes a deep breath, puts the key in the lock, and winces as it scrapes and turns.

There is no stirring from inside.  Most of the candles are put out except one by the window, which burns, fitful and sputtering, inside of its red-tinted glass.  Cersei lies sleeping, with the coverlet pulled up to her chin, but she doesn't seem particularly restful.  Her brows are knitted together and she sounds like she's moaning quietly in her sleep.  Catelyn tiptoes to the bed, lays her cloak down on the coverlet at Cersei's feet, and all the branches splay out on the covers, filling the air around the bed with their scent.  She takes a few of the tender wands in her hand, and moves toward the head of the bed.

She looks at this girl, this beautiful girl, who has turned her inside out, who has made passions ~~~~rise in her heart like flood tides, who has seemed larger than life to her.  But now seeing her sleeping, she looks small and fragile.  Catelyn sees the delicate girl who needs her affection.  She sits beside her on the edge of the bed, leans down, and kisses her tenderly on the lips.

Cersei stirs in her sleep and before she is even conscious, she starts to return the kiss.  It goes on for a few minutes, their lips warm and soft, their tongues searching, their breaths mingling in a way that makes Catelyn's blood sing.  She stops and looks at Cersei, who only now opens her eyes.

"Cat," she says tiredly, smiling but also looking confused.  "You're here."

Catelyn nods, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.  Her voice shakes.  "What's happened between us... it has all happened so quickly and so powerfully... it made me feel things I have never felt, and it... it frightened me.  But I can't hold myself away from you."

"You should have told me you were afraid," Cersei says, still looking sleepy, but happy.  "I have courage enough for both of us if yours should start to fail you.  I _am_ a lion, you know."  And she pulls Catelyn back down and kisses her some more.  After a moment, she stops.  "Do I smell... honeysuckles?"  She gives Catelyn a questioning look.

Catelyn holds up the branches still in her hand, then gestures to the foot of the bed, where the mind-boggling number of tender wands lie in crazy, fragrant disarray.

Cersei sits halfway up, her hair in a similar disarray, and she rubs her eyes and looks.  "Gods, how many are there?" she asks, starting to chuckle.

"I don't really know." Her voice wobbles.

"How long did it take you to cut all of that?"

Catelyn is laughing now, with tears rolling down her cheeks.  "Far too long.  I cut one, and then another, and then another, and it never seemed like enough.  I would blanket your whole chamber with them if I could!"

Cersei shushes her, trying to contain her own laughter, which is every bit as full of emotion as Catelyn's.  The fog of sleep continues to clear from her eyes and they start darting around over Catelyn and then the room, as wakefulness urges itself in.  She sees Catelyn's cloak draped on a chair next to the bed, covered with petals and leaves and sand.  "Oh, silly Catelyn ... Did you put all of those in your cloak to carry them here?"

Catelyn nods again.

Cersei kisses her.  "We need to get that cleaned immediately before your father sees it!  You ridiculous, lovely girl, all you needed bring was yourself."  She runs her fingers lightly over Catelyn's lips, then up her cheekbones.  She pulls their faces close, touching their foreheads together, smiling.  "You must always trust that I will never ask you for something you can't give me."

"It wasn't what you would ask that I was afraid of," Catelyn says, her voice low and shy.  "It was what I _wanted_ to give you that frightened me most.  I feared that I would abandon what remained of my virtue and that we would very quickly be lying naked in my bed."

"Mmm.  Sounds awful," Cersei whispers slyly, and moves her lips closer to Catelyn's.  She pauses, lets her breath warm them, then lightly runs her tongue over them.

Catelyn's eyes close, feeling a little thrill; she dwells in it for a moment, lets it tug at her gut for a few delicious seconds.

Catelyn, when she opens her eyes, sees that the blanket has slipped down to Cersei's waist and that she's wearing nothing, at least on top.  Her eyes become wide, lit up with fascination and desire.  "Do you always sleep like that?" she asks, her eyes traveling slowly down her shoulders, down to her chest, down to her lovely round breasts and their rosy nipples. She's overcome with urges to touch them, kiss them, feel them pressed against her.

Cersei grins.  "More often than not."

Catelyn pauses for a moment.  "And... under the coverlet?"

Cersei's sea-green eyes flash.  "The same."

Catelyn's hand comes up to cover her mouth, not sure whether she's stifling a gasp or a moan, a laugh or a sigh.  She looks at the blanket intently for a moment.

Cersei strokes her fingers down the side of Catelyn's neck.  "Cat, it's alright if you aren't ready tonight to-"

Catelyn cuts her off.  "May I see?"  She'd spent the entire walk here promising herself that she was not going to rush headlong into anything.  So much for resolve, she thinks wantonly.

Cersei considers her for a moment.  "Are you sure?"

Catelyn nods, her eyes already willing the covers away.

"Go ahead and pull the cover back yourself," Cersei says softly, lying back down.

Catelyn's hand hesitates for a moment before taking the hem of the coverlet, and slowly peeling it back to reveal Cersei's naked body.  She draws in a long slow breath and lets her eyes travel the length of it, from her curling toes to her long legs, to the cloud of gold hair at the place where they meet, up the graceful curves of her hips, her stomach, her breasts and neck and her face, sweet heavens, her lovely face.  "Gods be good," she whispers, closing her eyes for a moment and burying her face in the flowers she holds.  "I can die now."

Cersei's eyes shine, enjoying Catelyn's reaction.  "It's yours, Cat.  You may do as you please with it."

Catelyn takes the honeysuckle branches she's still holding and brings them to Cersei's face.  Cersei breathes their scent, smiling, saying nothing.  She just lies back, watching Catelyn's slow-burning hunger grow as she slowly, lightly strokes the branch down the side of Cersei's face and down her neck, brushing the blossoms along the surface of her skin.  She trails them down, between her breasts and then back up and over them, kissing their soft curves with the silken petals, brushing them over her nipples and down her stomach.  She sees that everything on Cersei's skin is reaching out for more of it. Delighted, Catelyn lightly, slowly drags the branch down her hips, first one then then other, down her thighs, trailing the fragrant blossoms over her.  Her lips curl when she brushes it over her sex and hears her little gasp and sees her bite her lower lip.  Cersei is sighing sweetly now, drawing deeper breaths, murmuring Catelyn's name.

Catelyn plucks a flower from one of the wands, pinches at it's base, and pulls it; a little thread comes forth, with a shiny bead of nectar hanging from it that drips down on to her finger. Cersei takes her hand and draws that finger into her mouth, sucking the sweet droplet away. Catelyn feels herself grow warmer at the touch of her tongue.

"Lie down with me," Cersei begs, her breathing tight.

Catelyn sits up.  She slips out of her gown and shift, enjoying Cersei's transfixed, hungry stare, and then even her smallclothes end up in a little heap on the floor. She slides into the bed next to her.

"Are you certain?" Cersei whispers, looking at her beautiful, naked Cat, taking all of her in for the first time.

Catelyn nods silently, tingling.

"Tell me what you want."

Catelyn plucks another blossom and pulls it's thread; the small bead of nectar drops onto her chest, in the space between her breasts.  Cersei looks at it, then back at Catelyn's face.  Catelyn smiles and nods.  Cersei lowers her head and softly licks the drop of nectar from her chest, and then lingers a moment more, tasting the flavor of her skin.  Catelyn feels as though she might die from the joy of it.

When Cersei looks up, Catelyn has already got another blossom in hand, and releases its sweet drop of nectar onto the top of her breast, the place just before it begins to slope into wonderful roundness.  Cersei again licks the nectar from her skin, quickening her heartbeat.

And so it continues; she places droplets on each breast, on her dusky nipples, on her ribs, on her stomach.  She places some on her lips to bring Cersei up into a honeyed kiss.  If Cersei is frustrated with the slowness of this, she does not show it, taking her cues from Cat's wordless instructions.  Catelyn's blood is rushing, her heart pounding, her sex aroused past reckoning from the feel of Cersei's kisses all over her.  "I am aching for you so much, it almost hurts.  I feel like I'm on fire," she breathes after a while of this exquisite torture.

"Do you want me to ease it?" Cersei asks, gentle and cautious.

"Tell me how you'll do it."

Who could have known that Cersei's evenings of lurking about taverns and listening to the loose talk of the lads and wenches would come to such sweet advantage one day? Catelyn moans quietly as Cersei whispers in her ear, explaining how she will pleasure her, that she can bring her release with her fingers, gently stroking her warm, wet sex, or with her mouth, kissing her there and teasing pleasure with her tongue...

She gets no further than that. Catelyn can no longer stand it, and grabs Cersei's hand and presses it between her legs, moving urgently against it. "Are you certain?" Cersei asks again, wanting her, but wanting it to be right. "Are you sure you want me there?"

"I want you everywhere," Catelyn breathes. "Especially there." The feel of Cersei's hand there is delicious agony and she wants as much of it as she can stand.

Cersei kisses her again to try and soothe her frantic movements. "Lie still," she says, gently stroking her palm along Cat's thrusting hips, "and let me touch you."

Catelyn calms her body and lets Cersei's hand settle between her legs with firm, gentle pressure. Then she feels her fingers lightly moving up and down the length of her wet sex, waking all of its nerves with soft, fluttering touches. She closes her eyes and surrenders to the heat blooming there, letting it spread through her. She is surprised at how quickly Cersei's fingers are able to find one particularly tender place, massaging it in slow circles with just the perfect touch that sends such raw pleasure through her that she can't speak or make thought. She can only lie there, moaning, whispering her name, uttering an occasional "yes," until she can't even manage that.  She shakes like an earthquake as she is shot through with a hotter, sweeter, more blinding explosion of pleasure than the one she felt the other night.  She pulls a pillow over her face to muffle her cries, because there is no keeping them in.  Cersei's fingers continue to stroke her gently until she is through the other side of it, and can no longer bear to be touched there.

She takes the pillow off of her face to find Cersei looking affectionately at her, her own face flushed.  "You lovely thing.  You gorgeous, lovely creature," Cersei says quietly, and kisses her.

Catelyn is still breathless.  "How... how did you know how to..." she struggles.  "Have you done... this... before?"

Cersei's naughty smirk creeps along her lips.  "Only with myself."

Catelyn's eyes again grow wide, and she stifles a giggle. "Yourself?"

Cersei laughs.  "Yes, of course.  You've never?"

Catelyn shakes her head.  Her eyes are filled with curiosity.  "Show me?

Cersei smiles, lying down on her back.  "Watch," she says, giving her girl a smoldering look, "and I will show you."

 

*****************

 

Dawn is beginning to light the horizon when Catelyn is finally heading back to her room.  She's not sure how she is even able to walk properly, but she manages to make her way back to her chambers undetected.  She slips out of her gown and into bed, knowing she desperately needs sleep.  But all she can do is lie there, grinning stupidly, smelling the sex and flowers lingering on her skin, and replaying in her mind the moments of this last night in Cersei's bed.  _How_ , she wonders, _will I ever be able to be apart from her?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Idyllic days at Riverrun, bookended by two awkward picnics.

Catelyn, Jamie and Cersei have gone for a picnic in the woods on the castle grounds. Catelyn sits on a blanket, finishing the stitching on the silver trout she'd abandoned the other day. Jamie and Cersei are sharing a fairly lazy bit of swordplay; Cersei is wearing a gown with a voluminous skirt, which she has to hold up with one hand while she parries and thrusts with her small training sword. Jamie is not remotely challenged, so he alternates between giving helpful suggestions on her grip and poking fun at her difficulty moving about in a dress. Catelyn smiles, both at the incongruity of beautiful Cersei trying to swing a sword while so encumbered in skirts, and the affectionate barbs that bounce between her and Jamie as she does so. She feels a little pang of regret that she and her own sister Lysa do not have a similar warmth to their relationship.

Cersei is lightly sweating and decides she's had enough. She sits beside Catelyn on the blanket and rests her head on her shoulder, watching admiringly as her needle slips effortlessly through the fabric, the silver trout's tail forming before her eyes.  Catelyn doesn't miss a stitch, but smiles contentedly at the weight of Cersei's golden head on her shoulder. It is the sort of unremarkable moment that can speak volumes about the affection between two people.

After watching them together for a moment, Jamie says, "So, my father says our engagement will be formally announced at supper tonight. It seems the wedding will be after I'm knighted, in two months or so."

The girls look up. It's Cersei who speaks first, remarking, "Well then, congratulations, I suppose." She uncorks the wine, which is still sitting on the blanket from their meal. "Here's to the peculiar little family we three are about to become." She sips from the bottle and passes it to Catelyn.

Catelyn takes the bottle. "You know, we brought cups," she scolds gently.

"Fuck cups," Cersei answers with a smirk, "a needless extra step."

Jamie sits down and they pass the bottle between them. "Don't worry, brother," Cersei jokes, "I'll let you have her on Wednesdays."

Catelyn gives her a sidelong glance*, not sure how amused she is by this humor. Jamie just shakes his head. He rises, and finds some excuse to wander away for a bit.

Cersei turns Catelyn's face toward her and kisses her anxiously.

"Are you alright?" Catelyn asks.

Cersei nods. "Yes..." She pauses. "I don't know. I had thought I would never find someone. It seems cruel that you must belong to my brother in the eyes of the world."

Catelyn looks at her. "It cannot be any other way," she says gently.

"I know," Cersei says, but her frustration is evident. "But it isn't fair. And," she adds, her emotion rising, "you'll be leaving the day after tomorrow and we won't see each other until the wedding."

Catelyn sees Cersei's anger start to coil and places a hand on her shoulder. "Come back with me," she says suddenly.

"What?"

"Come back with me to Riverrun. Your father will let you, I'm sure of it. He thinks I am a good influence," she says, looking mischievous.

"If he only knew," Cersei laughs.

"You can stay until we have to return for the wedding."

Cersei looks ecstatic. "Alright. Yes. Yes, I'll come back with you. We'll have Jamie suggest it to my father, he'll be certain to say yes then."

Jamie comes strolling back. "What trouble are you dragging me into now?" he asks, sighing wearily.

********

As suspected, when Jamie proposes to Tywin that Cersei be allowed to go visit Riverrun until the wedding, he agrees. The engagement is announced at supper that night, the food and drink flows freely, and there is music and laughter. Cersei is so thrilled at the prospect of leaving for Riverrun that she doesn't even seem to mind having to watch Catelyn dance with Jamie all evening.

*******

The girls are not forced to be half so cautious at Riverrun as at Casterly. Hoster trusts his daughter and feels no need to watch her movements as Tywin does with Cersei. So they enjoy their freedom to behave as any other young lovers might: they are never missed when they slip out for nighttime rides through the green hills, swimming naked in moonlit streams, making love in the soft sweetgrass by the riverbanks. They spend many nights in one girl's bed or the other, learning each other, delighting in each other, happily attempting everything they have ever heard of and anything they can dream up.

Everything that Cersei is, imprints itself on Catelyn; her warm sighs, the scent of her skin, the taste of her sex, the feel of her teeth sinking into Cat's shoulder when her passions are running especially hot. Her skin memorizes the touch of Cersei's hands and mouth, knows the fit of their bodies when they lay curled up together in the dark. She cannot believe anyone else in the world could know such a species of bliss.

In the afternoons, sometimes they find a favorite tree in a secluded place on the grounds and Catelyn sits under it, reading poetry aloud while Cersei, in her breeches and tunic, practices throwing knives from the set Jamie had gifted her before they left, or if it's the great fireplum tree, she climbs it and retrieves a pair of the tart, shiny fruits for them to enjoy. Catelyn, surprised each time at how agile and graceful she is, loves watching her climb the branches, and tells her so.  After a few weeks, Catelyn sees something relax in Cersei's face.

Cersei comes to study with her during the days, as well, though her patience for it is often lacking. She often sits beside Catelyn in the library, pretending to pore over whatever tome is open on the table before them, but mainly concerning herself with squeezing Catelyn's thigh under the table or whispering some of the salty talk she's discovered that her demure, blushing lover particularly enjoys. "You really ought to learn this," Catelyn chastises her, gesturing to whatever book of poetry or architecture or history they are reading from; despite the color coming into her cheeks, she wants to learn, and wants Cersei to learn with her.

"Why?" Cersei answers cheerfully. "I'm not going to marry a lordling. I'm going to run off and become a sword master in Braavos, my honeysuckle."

"Well, you'll be a very poor one if you don't know any war history."

And smiling naughtily, Cersei relents, and tries to pay attention.

Catlyn's determined that Cersei is going to learn something if it kills them both, so she borrows a volume from the Riverrun library about the legendary Maazourin spear queens. She decides to try a chapter or two as they lounge on Cersei's bed one night, she resting against some pillows, Cersei's head on her lap. Cersei listens quietly to the accounts of this tribe of warrior women in the far west; their fighting styles, their weaponry, their armor, their practice of taking wives as well as husbands, and the tale of their greatest queen, Randa Kanshara, whose wisdom and combat prowess were said to have brought much of the west under their control for a time.

Catelyn is surprised to find that they have finished the first four chapters already, without Cersei trying to distract her. Each time they complete one, Cersei says, "Let's do another," so they do. Finally, with the hour growing absurdly late, Catelyn says, "It's an enormous book, it's going to take us days to get through. We'll read more tomorrow ."

Cersei is enthusiastic.

They put the candles out and curl up together, kissing and talking in hushed tones about how they might like to spend tomorrow. They fall quiet after a while, stroking each other's backs and hair. Catelyn is just drifting to sleep when Cersei's voice softly nudges her awake. "Do you think they were real?"

"Who? The Maazourin?"

"Yes. Do you think?"

Catelyn yawns. "The tales are mostly collected from oral histories of other tribes that migrated here hundreds of years ago, and there aren't many in Westeros who've been that far west. Like most legends, I imagine it's probably based on some kernel of truth."

Cersei is quiet for a minute more, then asks, "Do you think there was really a Randa Kanshara?"

Catelyn yawns again. "Yes, my love, I expect so."

Another moment of quiet, and then, "Do you think I could learn spear fighting?"

"Go to sleep, my love," Catelyn sighs.

Cersei lays her head on Catelyn's chest, and falls asleep smiling. Catelyn cannot see into her dreams, but guesses they involve warrior women on horseback, wielding spears. Satisfied, she too drifts off to sleep smiling.

 

*****************************

 

One day, about a month into Cersei's stay, Catelyn's sister Lysa invites herself along on one of their afternoon picnic outings.  Catelyn has been aware of Lysa watching them ride away together lately, and so to avoid suspicion, she cannot say no.  Not wanting to take Lysa to any of the places that she and Cersei have been spending their time, instead they ride out to The Rings, a valley housing the ruins of three circular towers.  They are crumbled relics of another age, and all that remain are their foundations.  "Was it Tully ancestors that lived here?" Cersei asks.

"Of course," Lysa snaps, not feeling terribly ingratiating.  It's clear that she resents the warm, easy way that Catelyn and Cersei have with each other, and is feeling excluded.

"We think so," Catelyn immediately intervenes, trying to smooth things before they get too out of hand.  "But we're not sure.  The configuration is odd, though, for a castle.  It may have been storage silos, or lookout towers, something meant for combat defense."

"Or prisons," Cersei remarks. She starts asking about the stones, what were they, did they appear to be forge-fired, remarking on how they are layered. Catelyn is surprised that Cersei has these sorts of details at her fingertips.

Cersei feigns looking offended. "You thought I wasn't paying attention to our architecture reading," she chides.

"You weren't," Catelyn replies.

Cersei turns to Lysa in a jocular way and thumbs in Catelyn's direction.  "She thinks I don't listen when she's reading."

"You don't!" Catelyn laughs.

Lysa harumphs.  "I don't really have that problem, since Catelyn and I don't study together," she answers churlishly.

Catelyn gives Lysa an entreating look.  "Lysa," she says gently, "you and I worked out long ago that we did not make very good study partners."

"It's because you think you're so bloody smart," Lysa snarls.

Catelyn had forewarned Cersei before they arrived at Riverrun that her sister was a creature of moods. If you catch Harmless Lysa, she is awkward, speaks too quietly, and occasionally giggles at inappropriate times.  If you find yourself dealing with Difficult Lysa, she is negative, angry, persecuted, even perhaps paranoid.  It appears that Difficult Lysa has decided to come out with them today.

Catelyn sighs.  "Lysa, are we really going to argue about this?  You do much better taking your studies with Septa Ferlane instead of me."

"Yes, because you didn't want to get stuck behind with such a slow-witted dolt!"

Catelyn sees Cersei's fists balling up at her side and looks at her pleadingly, shaking her head.  Cersei frowns and tucks her hands behind her back.

Lysa plunges on.  "Well, you don't need me now anyway, you've got your smart, pretty Lannister girl to be your new sister when you marry Jamie!"  she raves.

"Careful, Lady Lysa," Cersei says, her voice dangerously cool.  "We would not want for things to become unpleasant, would we?"

Cat's eyes get wide as she looks again at Cersei, shaking her head, her lips mouthing _Please, don't._ Lysa can be infuriating when she gets into this state, but the only thing to do is let her go on until she runs out of wind in her sails.  Pushing back too hard usually only makes things worse.

"Shut up!" Lysa shouts back at her.  "You don't know what it is to be in my position.  I'm not as smart and I'm not as pretty and everyone thinks there's something wrong with me!  You don't know!"

Catelyn runs forward and throws her arms around Lysa, "Lysa.  Lysa, we love you.  Father loves you, and I love you, and you will be married soon too and have a husband who loves you. Father has been talking about the Arryn boy for you, making you Lady of the Vale.  You are Hoster Tully's daughter, same as me, and you will also marry a lord and have his children, and get new sisters and brothers, same as me."

She is saying all this in Lysa's ear as Lysa continues to rage.  Cersei stands back, watching, unable to do anything, listening to the mind-twisting cross-talk of the two sisters going on at once, over and through one another.  Eventually, Lysa exhausts herself and breaks down crying on Catelyn's shoulder.  "Here, Lysa, I think we should go home," Catelyn says after a few minutes, still hugging her sister tightly.  "Let's get home."

Cersei comes over without a word, and helps Lysa onto her horse.  She and Catelyn ride on either side of her all the way back to the stables, to make sure she doesn't fall or do something foolish.  Dark grey clouds follow them all the way there, threatening rain.

_*first documented appearance of the Tully Side-Eye(TM). ;)_


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The walls start to close in on our young lovers.

Late that night, after most everyone has turned in, Cat and Cersei go down to the kitchens. They are out of wine, and their stomachs are lightly grumbling. Even in the low light, with most of the fires out, the great stone kitchens of Riverrun have a warm luster to them, filled with brightly polished copper pots and other softly gleaming affordances. Old Marta, the head cook, has left a cauldron of something or other on a low, quiet boil overnight, and the sounds of it's gurgling and plopping are so quiet they nearly get lost in the mutter of the rain against the stones outside.

Cersei finds a half-full bottle and uncorks it, preparing to drink from it, but Catelyn sets a pair of cups on the work table in front of her. "Cups, my love," she says sweetly.

Cersei wrinkles her nose at Cat, pours wine into the two cups, and then takes a sip out of the bottle anyway, smiling impishly.

"You naughty thing," Cat scolds, unserious.

"Just to your liking, I think."

They share a warm glance that brings a little color to Catelyn's cheek. She pokes about through the baskets and cupboards and comes up with half a loaf of some dense, chewy brown bread and some fragrant, salty cheese that has a waxy orange rind on it. As they cuts bits of both and munch away on it, Cersei asks, "How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"With Lysa," she explains. "How are you not overcome with the urge to knock sense into her?"

Catelyn sighs. "Ah, that." She sips her wine and thinks for a moment. "There are times when anger must be met with anger. But often, anger is better met with mercy and grace."

Cersei considers this. "My father would say otherwise."

"Yes," Cat answers carefully. "I've heard tell of your father's style of doing things."

Cersei knows Catelyn's diplomatic tone by now. "And you don't like it."

She pauses. "No," she admits frankly.

"It's effective," Cersei protests mildly, clearly admiring her father's political acumen, despite resenting him personally. "He wields great power. I should like to do the same one day."

Catelyn chews thoughtfully for a moment. "Yes, but... to what end?" she asks finally. "Power for its own sake rarely comes to anything good. If people fear you, they will obey you. They will also come for your head the first chance they have. If people _love_ you, they will follow you."

Cersei is not angry, but doesn't seem ready to concede the point. "People fear King Aerys."

Catelyn smiles. "Yes, and House Baratheon has been spoiling for a war, has it not? I shouldn't wonder if King Aerys's days turn out to be numbered."

Cersei looks at her affectionately. "My clever girl," she murmurs, moving closer to her and lightly catching hold of one of her hands.

"My beautiful, naughty boy," Catelyn answers softly.

Not looking away from Cat's eyes for a moment, she says, "I think you've got something on your hand, my lady."

"Oh, goodness," Cat answers, coquettish. "How unladylike of me."

Cersei takes Catelyn's hand up to her lips, takes one of her fingers into her warm, wet mouth and caresses it with her sweet, soft tongue. Catelyn gasps a little and closes her eyes. "My sweetling," she whispers, feeling her body immediately begin to respond, "we really ought to retire to one of our chambers if you're going to do such things to me."

At this moment, they hear a clatter of a broom being knocked over. They jump apart and turn sharply to find that Lysa is standing in the doorway, with a look of shock and confusion. Everyone stands frozen for a moment and then Lysa runs away without a word, the rustle of her skirts growing fainter down the long hallway.

Catelyn looks around in alarm, her mind racing. Her eyes light upon Old Marta's pot boiling away over the low fire and she marches quickly toward it.

"What are you doing?" Cersei asks worriedly.

"This." She takes the finger Cersei was sucking on a moment ago and thrusts it against the outside of the pot. Scalding pain shoots through her finger and when she pulls it away, she sees a red mark and a blister beginning to rise.

"What in seven hells-?" Cersei begins.

"My finger was in your mouth because I carelessly burnt it on Old Marta's pot," she says firmly. "You were trying to soothe it before the blisters raised."

Cersei is stricken, but nods in agreement.

Uneasy, they agree not to chase after Lysa, as it will only make them look guilty. They decide to spend the night apart and agree that they will only deploy Catelyn's ruse if confronted. They exchange a furtive kiss goodnight before parting ways.

******

Hoster indeed confronts Catelyn in private after breakfast the next morning. "Is there something you need to tell me about you and your future sister in law?"

Catelyn looks at him steadily. "What do you mean, Father?" she asks innocently.

He sighs. "Lysa said she saw the two of you last night-- and mind you, I understand that she may not always be accurate in her perceptions-- but she told me she saw the two of you in the kitchens last night and that Cersei was..." He pauses uncomfortably. "That you two were about some business you should not have been."

Catelyn sighs. "We only took a little cheese and bread and a half a bottle of wine," she protests mildly.

"It's not that!" Hoster cries in frustration. "Your finger was in her mouth, Lysa said, and it looked... It looked ... untoward."

Catelyn takes a quick breath. She has never before lied to her father. "Of course it was in her mouth. I hadn't noticed that Old Marta had left a pot boiling and burned myself on it." She holds up the burned finger for his inspection. "She was trying to soothe it before it blistered."

Hoster looks at the injured finger and his shoulders slump in relief. He shakes his head. "Of course," he sighs.

Catelyn piles on now. "Poor Lysa," she goes on, "I think she has been feeling jealous of my closeness with Cersei and... saw what she wanted to see. She rode out to The Rings with us yesterday and had one of her episodes. A bad one, at that. Raging with resentment." She feels badly, for though this part is true, she is using the truth to prop up a lie, and it makes her stomach knot up.

"Is that so," Hoster muses. "Why did you not mention it earlier?"

"I had no wish to trouble you, my Lord."

Hoster becomes decisive. "Indeed. Well, your wedding plans are to begin in earnest this week. Tansy Burbrick the seamstress is coming today to show you dress patterns."

Catelyn tries to look pleased instead of alarmed. "Excellent, my lord."

"You shall include your sister in some of this planning. Let her feel she is part of it." He looks at her finger again. "And go see the Maester and get that finger treated and wrapped."

***********

And so it is that Catelyn and Cersei's idyllic month at Riverrun has come to an end. They still share their beds, still slip away in the evenings to swim, still study together in the mornings after breakfast, but they are far more cautious than they have been. And thanks to the wedding plans and gown fittings and so on, there are far fewer afternoons of reading poetry and climbing fireplum trees. They've been rudely reminded that their relationship has to remain secret, and that Catelyn is soon going to belong to Jamie.

Hoster's theory that including Lysa in the wedding plans might help her disposition seems to bear itself out. Her mood levels out, and she and Catelyn never discuss what she saw that night in the kitchens.

When Catelyn is done each day with whatever she and her sister are doing, she starts finding Cersei in the library more and more; she has become fascinated with the Maazourin and with Randa Kanshara and some of the other spear queens. Catelyn finds her reading tribal migration histories, studying incomplete maps of the far West, looking at books about spear-fighting styles. "You're obsessed," Catelyn tells her affectionately.

The weeks inch by and the wedding plans consume more of Catelyn's time.  After an afternoon of food tastings, Catelyn looks for Cersei in the library but doesn't find her.  When she drops by Cersei's chamber, she finds her sitting around in her breeches and shift, strumming away at a lute with what one might generously describe as mixed results.  Catelyn comes up behind her and sees that, much like her needlework, her fingers on the lute's fretboard are white from pressing too hard.  She lightly strokes the back of her neck.  "Just like your embroidery.  You hold too tightly."

Cersei smiles.  "Is that right?"

"Yes."  She fiddles absently with Cersei's ponytail.  "Too much pressure deadens the vibration of the string.  You must be firm, but gentle, and apply only enough pressure to make a pleasing sound."  She kisses the top of her golden head.  "You know, pretend it's me."

Cersei sets the lute down and turns around.  "If I did that, I'd cut my tongue on these strings." She places her hands on Catelyn's hips and looks at her warmly.  "How are the plans coming?"

Catelyn sighs. "Fine, I suppose? I am getting on well with Lysa, too. But... I tire of it all." She looks at Cersei, suddenly feeling impulsive. "Tansy is suffering a headache today, so I've nothing this afternoon. Let's go to Jarron's Falls and have a swim."

They hurry down to the stables before anyone can ask anything of them, Cersei having hastily pulled a rose-pink gown on over her boy clothes, and ride out to the falls. The sun blazes on their backs all the way there, making them eager to quench the heat of their skin.

The water of Jarron's River spills over a great mossy shelf into a clear pool before meandering down into the valley. The girls tie the horses to a tree and make their way down the rocks. There is just enough space between the stream of frothing water and the rock behind it, that they can slip through to the little cave beneath the falls, where they can swim without being seen. They can also make love with abandon here, since the rushing water covers even particularly joyous moaning.

They carefully undress, trying to keep their clothing as dry as possible, pin their hair up, and lower themselves into the pool. They take a moment to relax, leaning against the rocks and letting their legs float in the rippling water. It is so peaceful that Catelyn indulges in allowing herself to forget the foreboding that has been nagging at her heart these last few weeks. She lets herself dwell in the pleasure of Cersei's face; her smile; her sea-green eyes; her slim, bosomy body moving easily through the water. Catelyn swims over to her and tucks a stray, damp blonde tendril of hair back into the knot of hair on her beloved's head. "A fugitive," she says teasingly.

Cersei draws her close and they kiss, and embrace, and relish the feel of their skin slipping against each other's under the water. Their hands slide effortlessly over each other's bodies. It feels so sweet, so natural, Catelyn can't help but wonder who decided such affection was to be forbidden.

After several minutes lost in Cersei's soft, delicious mouth, Catelyn pulls back a little and whispers, "I love you." While she has addressed Cersei as "my love" countless times, this is the first time she has declared it in this way.

Cersei looks at her, smiling a smile so beautiful that it puts hooks into Catelyn's heart and tugs.

"Do you love me?" Catelyn asks.

"I have loved you from the first," Cersei sighs, squeezing Catelyn tighter. "From the moment I saw you at supper, your first night at Casterly."

Catelyn's eyebrows raise. "At supper?"

Cersei nods, laughing foolishly. "Yes. I couldn't stop looking at you. I thought someone would surely see me. I watched you all evening, so graciously dodging my stupid cousin, and saw you sneak off."

Catelyn is laughing too, now. "In other words, you followed me outside? Our meeting on the steps was not mere chance?"

"Yes. It wasn't even that you were beautiful, though you are. It was something about your way. I wanted to be near you."

Catelyn is moved near to tears, and is about to kiss her, but she stops suddenly and lays a finger to Cersei's lips. Over Cersei's shoulder, she sees a man's shape on the other side of the stream of water. Cersei turns and sees it too. They freeze, huddled together at the back wall of the pool.

The shape disappears for a moment, then re-emerges on the inside of the falls. It's a man, looking ragged and unkempt, not dressed in any discernible colors or sigil. He catches sight of them and grins toothlessly. "What have we here?" he says aloud, leering at the girls, his voice sounding like grinding metal.

Catelyn is the first to speak. "The daughters of Hoster Tully and Tywin Lannister, out for a swim." She takes in his disheveled clothing, which looks as if it has not been washed in some time. "If you are hungry, you may see Cordric Faye at the castle, and he shall put you right."

"Oh? What castle's that?" he asks, stumbling a little as he steps toward them. It's hard to tell if he is drunk, or mad and crippled.

"You are at Riverrun," she informs him coolly. "There is nothing for you in this cave, sir. You'd be well advised to move along if you know the names of our fathers."

Cersei slowly reaches into her pile of clothing, feeling cautiously for her belt and the two handsome throwing knives she carries when dressed in breeches.

"Well," he slurs, "I don't know the names of your fathers, and I don't see as there's much you lovelies can do to keep me out of here. Not very wise, highborn ladies swimming unescorted." He takes another stumbling step forward, still leering.

Catelyn nervously touches Cersei's arm under the water.

"Don't move, my love," Cersei whispers. And then she pulls the first knife and sends it hurtling toward him.

Her skills are not perhaps what she would like them to be but the thing does land, pointy end first, in the man's bloated stomach. He moves from surprise, to pain, to rage, and starts stumbling toward them howling that he will kill them both. Cersei grabs the other knife, leaps from the pool, and flings herself at him.

Again, it is not quite neat nor graceful; she stabs him several times while he lurches at her and he finally pins her to the wall of the cave. She gets the knife into his throat and his howling ceases. He sinks to the rocks, blood spurting from the wound she gave him.

Cersei turns to Catelyn; panting, naked, smeared with blood, her eyes flashing, she's fearsome to behold. Catelyn begins to sob quietly. Cersei slips back into the water and calmly pulls Catelyn to her. "You killed him," Catelyn sobs, trying to comprehend what she just watched.

Cersei holds her tightly, whispering, "Cat, it's alright. You're safe, it's alright."

Cat looks at her, overwhelmed. "You... You protected us," she stammers through her tears.

Cersei's face is deadly serious. "I will not allow anyone to hurt you."

They climb out of the pool after a minute and start to get dressed, trying to figure out what to do.

"We have to tell my father," Catelyn says shakily.

"We _can't_ tell your father. He'll tell my father. _And_ we'll never be able to go anywhere alone again."

"But this could have been so much worse!"

"I protected you," Cersei says. "We don't need your father's guards."

Catelyn is not convinced and is feeling ill at the prospect of lying to her father yet again. She goes to see him and tells him what happened. Hoster is by turns alarmed, troubled, and then relieved. "Well, I owe her a debt of gratitude," he says, not quite believing the whole thing.

"I swear it, that is what happened, and if you go the cave beneath the falls, you will find the man's body," she promises, near tears again. "But Father, I must beg something of you."

"What is it, child?"

"I must beg you not to speak of this to Lord Tywin. It greatly displeases him that Cersei is interested in weaponry and fighting. I would not have her incur her father's wrath simply for saving my life."

Hoster frowns. "I would not want another father to lie to me about you doing something which I disapproved of." He frets for a moment, pulling his beard. "But Tywin is not always a reasonable fellow. I cannot have her punished for keeping you safe."

Catelyn sighs with relief and runs to her father, flinging her arms around him. "Thank you, Father."

"However," he adds, "I think it best if the two of you do not ride unaccompanied for a while."

"Of course, my lord." She kisses him on the cheek and runs out.

And so, with only a week before they must leave for Casterly and the wedding, their little bubble grows smaller still. They are only ever able to be alone at night in their chambers, or during little stolen moments in the library stacks, or in empty stairwells. "It will be better after the wedding," they promise each other.

But their lovemaking takes on an urgent, anxious quality, as if they are feeling time running out.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone cries at weddings.

_While I rarely post preparatory comments, I feel, dear reader, compelled to tell you two things: one, I reassure you that this is not the end; and two, you will enjoy this best if you picture Tansy Burbrick as being embodied by Dame Maggie Smith, and Aunt Yrene Tully as Judi Dench. Enjoy!_

******

Cersei spends the night before the wedding in Catelyn's chamber.  They barely sleep at all, and although they do make love a few times, that isn't how most of their night is spent.  They lay together, drinking wine, reading to each other, talking in soft whispers, kissing, weeping quietly from time to time, promising each other that they will not let this tear them apart.  At one point in the midst of it, Catelyn takes the silver chain with its little silver trout charm from around her neck, and she places it on Cersei.  "From tomorrow onward, I shall be up to my neck in gold lions," she whispers, "but you have nothing of me to wear on you."

They don't know how any of this is going to work, apart from Jamie's fervent promises that it will. But that makes it no easier to know that tomorrow, Catelyn is going to stand up before hundreds of people, and in the sight of the septons and the gods, pledge herself to him. No matter that the words will be empty.

"I don't care what the septons say," Cersei whispers fiercely, clutching the little pendant at her throat, "I'm yours, and you're mine. It doesn't matter what words you say tomorrow."

Catelyn kisses her, meaning for it to be tender, to cool Cersei's rising emotion, but she finds herself caught in its updraft instead. Within minutes she is on her back, with Cersei lying between her legs, lavishing deep kisses on her aching sex, her quick, hot tongue sending raw, sweet waves of pleasure through her. Cersei's mouth is well familiar with the particular ways her Catelyn likes to be kissed there and it takes her little time to bring her to the edge of orgasm.

"You're mine," she whispers to Catelyn between strokes of her tongue.

"Yes," Catelyn breathes, quickly nearing a climax.

"Say it," Cersei insists, continuing to kiss her.

"I am yours, Cersei," she moans softly, and then she comes, trembling and clutching at her lover's golden hair.

*******

Cersei dresses quickly in the morning to make it appear that she was merely the first to arrive at Catelyn's chambers to help her get ready. Lysa shows up, and then a few other Tully and Lannister cousins and aunts, and then finally Tansy Burbrick. The haughty crone sweeps in, dressed in her orange gown and great, flamboyant feathered hat, wheeling her dressing dummy bearing Catelyn's gown, barking imperiously at the young ladies and only managing slightly more respect for the older ones. But Tansy's disposition is tolerated because she is no mere seamstress; as is clear when everyone lays eyes on the dress, she is rather an artist of the highest order. "This young lady is to be the loveliest bride Casterly Rock has ever seen!" she declares. "And it depends entirely on you lot being very precise in your handling of this dress and doing exactly as I say."

Under her somewhat terrifying instruction, Cersei and three other girls together lift the dress off of the dummy - "All together at once, you four! _Seven hells_ , have none of you been been taught to dance? Coordinate yourselves! I'll not have you spoiling the silk and sending this bride into the sept with a flaw in her skirts!"

But when Tansy is done with her reign of terror, and the gown is on Catelyn, it is even more breathtaking than it was on the dressing dummy. The silk is a shimmering blue-green that makes the colors of her eyes and hair sing in the light. The neckline dives dangerously low, and its narrow cut makes her already long neck look utterly swan-like. The skirt has a split front, trimmed in gold, and when she moves, a generous cloud of incredibly light, pearlescent petticoats can be seen where it opens. Cersei is looking at her, dewy-eyed.

"Beautiful. Now, let's see to your hair, my sister," she says, her voice brimming with emotion. "Lysa, I think you should start working on her braids. I shall fetch some blue columbines to weave into them."

******

Jamie knocks on the door a while later.

"No entry!" barks Catelyn's elderly aunt, Yrene Tully. "Groom can't see the bride before the wedding!" She slams the door in his face.

Jamie sighs. "Of course, my lady. But nonetheless, I do need a word with my bride. May she and I speak through the door?"

"Alright then," Yrene grumbles, "get on with it."

"I was rather hoping for some privacy," he persists gently.

"Aunt Yrene," Catelyn pleads, "I promise I'll not let him in. Can you and the other ladies clear the room for just a bit?"

Yrene grouses about how irregular this is. But she herds the rest of the ladies out of the room, wagging a warning finger at Jamie as they walk off down the hall.

"Your Aunt is a treasure, my lady," he says cheerfully through the heavy door.

"As you say, my lord," Catelyn replies, smiling. "What did you want to discuss?"

"I just thought you and my sister would be glad to hear that there will be no bedding ceremony tonight."

A wave of relief washes over her. She had deliberately avoided thinking about it. "How is this so?"

"I pled the case to our two fathers," he explains, seeming pleased with himself. "Citing my lady's modesty and virtue, of course."

"Indeed, my lord, I think it is you who are the treasure today." She wants to open the door and embrace him out of gratitude, but feels certain that Yrene would descend from nowhere with a rolling pin and begin beating them about the head and shoulders.

*********

The ceremony is grand and predictable. Only about half of the wedding guests fit into Casterly's sept. Catelyn says the words, but barely feels her lips move. Cersei sheds tears, but this is unremarkable, as so many women weep at weddings. Lysa is also weeping, and it strangely warms Catelyn's heart that she and Cersei are leaning on one another as they do so.

They are an attractive couple; Jamie the handsome young knight and Catelyn, his beautiful, cultured lady. When he places his cloak around her shoulders and gives her a chaste kiss on the lips, the cheering is enough to shake the sept.

The reception is lavish, though less ostentatious than it could be, given the Lannisters' wealth. Music swirls through the air and guests dance as course after course is brought forth from the Casterly kitchens. Cersei and Catelyn do not sit near each other, having agreed in advance that this would be best. But Jamie, almost entirely sober himself, notes that both Catelyn and Cersei are being rather free with the wine. "My lady," he says in Catelyn's ear as they dance, "you may wish to slow up on the drink. Emotions are rather high, just now."

"Indeed they are, my lord, and that is why I drink," she replies, still in command of her faculties but feeling a bit loose.

Jamie frowns. He sees a meat course coming through the doors and escorts her back to her seat. "My lady, please sit and enjoy the next course. I need a brief word with my sister."

Catelyn tucks into some thin slices of roast boar with a pungent honey glaze, watching Jamie go and have a conversation with Cersei that she presumes to be much like the one he just had with her. Her lip reading skills are not very good but she's fairly sure that Cersei is lovingly telling him to fuck off.

Dinner comes and goes, the cakes come and go, only the candies and sweet wines remain to be brought out. A lull comes as the musicians lay down their instruments and the group come to replace them has not yet begun to play. It is in this awful lull that the banging of flatware on cups begins somewhere in the room, and a drunken voice begins hollering for a bedding ceremony.

Unsurprisingly, it is Corvin.

Hoster and Tywin had made it the task of certain reliable busybody aunts to quietly disseminate the word among the guests that there would be no bedding ceremony. And they had done their job. But Corvin nevertheless sits here chanting for one, and enough people in the room are drunk enough to have forgotten, or at least feel they are drunk enough to credibly pretend to have forgotten, that a few voices began to take up his chant.

Cersei gets up and exits the hall quickly, and Catelyn knows without seeing her face that this was the last indignity that she could not bear. Jamie leaps to his feet and makes his way over to Corvin's table. He grabs him by the collar and hauls him out of his chair. "Was it not explained to you, cousin?" he growls.

The others chanting fall silent when they see Jamie's seriousness.

Corvin's hollering gets caught in his throat. "I am at a wedding, Ser Jamie. I had forgotten it was a different sort of wedding," he answers with a tinge of passive aggression.

Jamie leans in and says quietly, dangerously, "Corvin, unless your next words are 'my apologies, Ser Jamie,' you will be spending the rest of what will remain of your life in a great deal of pain."

Corvin looks fearfully at him. He pauses for a moment, then says, "My apologies, Ser Jamie. I meant no disrespect to you or your lady."

Jamie shoves him disgustedly back into his seat and turns around to see Catelyn running out the door of the Great Hall. He turns to the rest of the room, comes up with a breezy smile, and shouts, "No matter, it appears my lady is anxious to begin nonetheless!"

To laughter, clapping and hooting, he strides from the room, hoping to find his wife and sister before someone else does.

********

Catelyn runs unsteadily through the halls of Casterly, desperately looking for Cersei. She finally finds her on a terrace in a stone garden two flights down. She runs up and grabs her shoulders. "Cersei! They're not doing it! They're not doing the bedding ceremony!"

Cersei is in tears. "It doesn't matter!" she sobs. "I don't care about that!"

Catelyn tries to hold her, calm her, but Cersei is past calming and keeps pushing her away.

"You and my brother talk about honor, but you are ready to live a lie! And have me live it with you!"

Catelyn begins to weep too. "Cersei, Cersei, this is the world we live in, what choice have we?"

"You could choose me! You could stand up and tell your father that you choose me!"

Catelyn is trembling and trying to clutch Cersei's hands in her own. "Cersei, it would land us in a convent or worse!"

They are shedding incalculable amounts of tears now, talking through each other as they weep. "I don't care, I don't care! Catelyn, I don't want anything except you-"

"We can still have each other this way. I don't want our love relying on your brother's good graces but-"

"-and if I can't have you, I don't want anything!"

"-it is better than losing you forever, don't you understand that? I have to do my duty to my family but at least we can still have _something_ together."

"What of your duty to me? Catelyn, what happens when my father marries me off too? What then? How do we keep this together when we have to pretend it doesn't exist?"

Catelyn wraps her arms firmly around her, holding tightly and not releasing her despite her twisting and trying to pull away. "Cersei, listen to me! Listen. We will find a way, we will always find a way. I am yours, and you are mine, no matter the words I said today. Cersei, we will always find a way, because I love you." Cersei stops pulling and twisting, and looks at her, agonized. Catelyn repeats it. "We will always find a way. Because I love you. I love you more than I knew my heart could bear, I love you the way they sing about in ballads, I love you with a love that could bring a kingdom to dust if I were to let it. Don't crumble on me, my love, not now."

Their breathing is shallow. Cersei's eyes are rimmed with red, and her stare is all sparks and storms. She grabs Catelyn's face and kisses her with a hard, blazing passion. Catelyn sinks into her and returns it, matching heat for heat, spark for spark, bite for bite. "Don't ever stop wanting me," Cersei whispers between kisses.

"Never," Catelyn whispers back.

They are so lost in the moment that they don't hear the footsteps coming until they are torn from each others' arms by four burly guards. Cersei tries to cry out but one of the two guards covers her mouth, and Catelyn finds her own mouth covered as well.

"It appears her ladyship is too drunk to realize which twin she is kissing," comes Tywin's voice, dry as sand, from a balcony above the terrace. "Escort her to the bridal suite, Clegane." He pauses, and adds disgustedly, "As for my daughter, see that she does not leave her room. She's clearly distraught and a danger to herself just now. You are to allow no visitors to her room but me."

Cersei is dragged away struggling, but Catelyn simply surrenders sadly, and prepares to walk, weeping, escorted by two guards, all the way to the bridal suite. Before she staggers away, though, she looks up to the balcony again at Tywin and spies Corvin standing behind him, pointing and laughing. _He_ had seen them. _He_ had fetched Tywin.

Catelyn, through her fear and shame and grief, finds one little burning coal of hatred for Corvin Lannister, and nursing it in a quiet corner of her storming soul gives her the strength to walk to the bridal suite without shame. She carries herself instead with proud anger.

Perhaps she is a lion now, after all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Got hankies? Good.

"You're supposed to be the sensible one!" Jamie sputters, fighting to keep his voice down. "You're supposed to be the steady, cautious one! How could you have been this careless?"

He is pacing back and forth in the bridal suite, running his fingers through his hair repeatedly, frustrated and trying to figure out what to do.

Catelyn sits, her expression diamond-hard, her hands shaking with anger. "My lady was weeping. Would you have me not hold her?" Her voice is frighteningly quiet.

Jamie looks pained. "Not where you can be seen." He sighs. "Catelyn, I understand what it is to have to pretend you don't love the one you love. You have no greater ally in this than me. But... I really don't know what I can do about this.  I fear it is beyond my power to help."

"What has your father said to you?"

"You are my wife and therefore my problem. But Cersei is to be married immediately to Robert Baratheon, and will be sent to a convent if she refuses. And in either case, he is forbidding her to see you."

"He cannot stop us."

"Yes, he can. He is Tywin Lannister. My cousin Corvin is doubtless already on his way to the bottom of the sea."

Catelyn raises an eyebrow. "Then your father and I agree on one thing." She pauses. "But why?"

"Corvin is an idiot, more concerned with the attention gossip gives him than he is with preserving the family name. He would no doubt spread what he saw. My father will not have the Lannister legacy so besmirched."

Catelyn looks at him gravely. "You must find a way for me to see her."

 

***********

 

Catelyn is sitting around their chamber a few hours later when a knock comes at the window.  Jamie gestures toward it.  She hurries over and throws it open.  There is Cersei, in breeches and tunic, clinging to the molding outside, clearly having clambered up the trellis covered with clinging ivy.  Catelyn offers a hand to help her inside, but Cersei declines.  "There's no time for that.  I'm leaving.  Come with me."

Catelyn leans out the window and kisses her,  flooded with the bittersweet memory of the last time Cersei climbed up to her window and asked her to go somewhere with her.  "Where, my love?"

"I don't know.  But I've got a purse fat with gold and a real sword, and if we hurry now, we can be far away by the time they know we're gone."

This time, Catelyn thinks sadly, there is no running off.  "Your father has eyes everywhere.  Two pretty highborn girls will not be able to disappear for very long in the seven kingdoms."

"Then fuck the seven kingdoms!" Cersei exclaims.  "We can go west."

"West?  What do you mean, west?"

"The Far West," Cersei says, her eyes flashing with excitement.  She becomes almost giddy as the thought tumbles from her mind and out her mouth.  "Far away, my love.  Across the sea.  The Maazour Mountains.  The banks of the Tamra River."

Catelyn shakes her head.  "Cersei, you've read too many volumes about the Maazourin!  I understand that you want to punish your father by running away and refusing to be his bargaining chip with House Baratheon, and... I don't even blame you for it.  But I cannot do that to my own father."

Cersei's face darkens.  "Ah, family, duty, honor," she says cynically.  "My love, what would you have us do, then?  If I stay, I am subject to my father's will and he will do everything to keep me from you."

"If you marry Robert Baratheon, and he becomes king, you will be queen.  Queens can do as they like," Catelyn pleads.  "If we run, it is a life of looking over our shoulders.  But if we play the game-"

"No more of the game," Cersei says firmly.  "I am tired of it.  Playing the game still means looking over our shoulders.  I am tired of being told what I can't do, what I shouldn't do.  Tired of not being ladylike enough.  Tired of being crushed inside of a box that was never meant to hold one like me.  I cannot abide it anymore.  Not if I am going to be forced to do it without you beside me."

Catelyn reaches out to her again.  "Cersei, this is no way to discuss this.  You cannot reasonably make a life decision hanging from a windowsill."

"It is the only way life decisions are ever made," Cersei jokes.

"Please, come inside, my love."

"Catelyn, I am going.  I know why you would ask me to stay, but I cannot.  I am done.  I cannot stay so long as my father is alive to keep me from your side, because whether I am in Storm's End or King's Landing or the Far West, it's all the same if I am not with you.  Please, Cat, please come with me."

Catelyn's eyes grow hot and start to fill with fresh tears.  "I can't.  I can't.  I can't humiliate my father, I can't humiliate Jamie... It goes against everything inside of me, everything that I am, to abandon the duties I am bound to."

Cersei looks incredibly sad.  She pauses, collecting herself.  "It would be asking you to betray yourself to ask you to run away.  As much as it is asking me to betray myself to ask me to stay.  And how can we ask each other to become something other than the people we love?"  She gives a long sigh, blinking back some tears. "It is a thorny one, isn't it."

"What do we do, then?" Catelyn asks, wiping her own tears as they spill down her cheeks.

"Kiss me again," Cersei says.

Catelyn leans out of the window again, and they kiss.  It feels like falling.  It feels like slipping away.  It feels like her heart shattering on the flagstones and being swept up by the wind and blown into the sea.

"This is not the end," Cersei vows when they have parted, looking strangely serene, despite the fact that Catelyn is crying harder now.  "You said, Cat, we will find a way, because we love each other."

It was mere hours ago and yet it sounds childish to her ears, now.  "Where will you go?" Catelyn asks, her voice wavering.

"Away.  But I will be back."

"When?"

"I don't know.  But wait for me."

Catelyn is pulling Cersei's hand, her chin quivering.  "Cersei, please..."

"Don't crumble on me, my love.  Not now.  Wait for me."

A shout echoes from a distant hallway.

Cersei looks sharply in the direction from whence it came.  "They have discovered my absence.  I must go.  But I will return."  She slips halfway down the trellis and then jumps to the balcony below.  She repeats this process, making her way down the castle walls until she reaches the ground level and breaks for the stables.  Catelyn staggers back to the bed, lies down, and cries herself to sleep.  Jamie lies down beside her, and Catelyn swears that he is doing the same, however carefully he may be trying to conceal it.

 

********

 

Jamie and Catelyn are both wrecked after Cersei leaves.  Catelyn still keeps that rough, messy little sailboat with the silver knot-stars that Cersei had stitched her.  It lives near her pillow, so that she can breathe the faint scent of Cersei on it, that particular mingling of leather and flowers, that still hangs lightly on the fabric.  Jamie is taciturn during the day, desperately sad at night.

To combat their loneliness, they share a sexless bed for six months, before Tywin begins pressuring them to produce an heir.  So, they gamely try to lay together a few times.  Jamie is kind, and tries to make sure she is comfortable, but in the end it feels mostly like a chore.  Catelyn gets pregnant though, and again a few years later.  In all, she and Jamie have three children: two boys, Dorron and Rylan, and then a girl, who after no debate whatsoever, they name Cersei.  They are all big, strong, beautiful children with red-gold hair, who smile easily and think clearly, who are full of laughter and questions, and enjoy both books and wooden swords equally.  Jamie is grateful that none of them struggle with the difficulty he had when learning to read.

Jamie and Catelyn don't fall in love, but they grow to become true friends, and they stand beside one another as husband and wife must do.  When the Lannisters throw in with House Baratheon and Robert's rebellion, Jamie is the one who ends up slaying King Aerys, and Catelyn fiercely defends his actions as brave and right, unleashing fury on anyone who so much as whispers the name "Kingslayer" behind his back.  They are good partners, who seek each other's counsel in all things.

They agree to allow each other permission to lay with other women, but neither takes advantage of it very much.  They each have a handful of dalliances over the years, none of which amount to anything more than a half-hearted night or two with some young lovely.  One drunken evening, they decide that they are going to make a true run at being a real couple, and decide that they will make it as decadent and joyous as possible.  They bring in a prostitute to share their bed, a tall, leggy blonde with a small waist and firm, round tits.  It only ends up depressing them both and they pay her double to leave early.

Catelyn turns to him after the girl has gone, and says to him, "It was always Cersei that you were in love with, wasn't it."

He looks at her, and smiles sadly.

"If you were in love with her, why did you want to help her to be with me?" she asks.

He sighs, pulling his shift back on.  "Because I am her brother, and that is not looked upon very favorably by... well, anyone.  And... and because I've always known that she wanted women.  I nursemaided her through countless miserable longings over completely unavailable girls, and even before that... I knew.  I knew before she did, I think.  Even if I wanted to act on my feelings for her, and carry on with her in secret, I could never be what she needed.  So.  I wanted her happy.  I wanted her loved.  Seeing her face when she talked about you, or watching you together that day in the woods... She was happy.  It was so clear that you loved her, and not only that, but that you especially loved the parts of her that most others saw as broken."

Catelyn thinks back fondly, sadly, on how she used to call Cersei "my beautiful boy," with such tender, teasing affection, and realizes that he is right.

"The night she first met you," he continues, "she came barging into my room as she often did, and jumped on my bed and said, _Jamie, Jamie, there's a girl!  And she's beautiful!  And she kissed me!_ I said, _That's wonderful, who is she?_   And she said, _Well, I think she's the girl you're meant to marry, but you don't mind, do you?  Please say you don't mind, she's amazing!"_

The pair of them laugh until tears come.

 

*******

 

Jamie has quietly had his own people searching for Cersei, but they've never turned up anything, and after enough years pass, he calls it off.  His children with Catelyn are quite large now; they are riding horses and studying poetry and learning to sail.  His sister has either met some sorry end, or else figured out how not to be found.

Robert Baratheon has assumed the throne, but some of the great houses loyal to the Targaryens are not content to accept this, and so skirmishes continue to break out between the various lords of Westeros.  Jamie spends a great deal of time at King's Landing serving in Robert's small council, or else assisting loyal houses in dealing with the conflicts breaking out around the kingdoms, leaving Catelyn to manage Casterly's affairs.  Tywin dies, ironically not as a result of these miniature wars, but instead felled by the vengeful blade of a young boy whose family had met some particularly needless brutality of Tywin's some years ago.  Catelyn can't help thinking of her words to Cersei in the kitchens of Riverrun in those sweet days before the wedding: "If people fear you, they will obey you.  But they will also come for your head the first chance they get."

Inevitably, some soldiers eventually come to Casterly.  Jamie is at King's Landing and so Catelyn has to call the master of arms and muster the men of the Rock to stand and fight.  She sees the brilliant green and gold banners approaching and shakes her head.  "House Tyrell," she grumbles.

It is not a large army, appearing mostly to be a sort of cavalry meant to send a message and stir up some terror.  But Catelyn grabs hold of old Tawley, ushers him and the children down to the stables, and begins to instruct him to load them in the back of the haycart and ride the hell out, down to Lannisport, and get them on a damned boat if necessary.

As they set about making this happen, a single Tyrell man comes running into the stable.  He sees Catelyn and the children, and recognizes who he's got in his sights.  "Good idea, Lady Lannister, but you are too late.  I think you'll be coming with me."

"We will not be going anywhere with you."  Catelyn pushes the children behind her and prepares for the worst as he unsheaths his sword.

But suddenly, the point of a spear pops out the front of his chest and then back in, leaving blood pouring out.  He tumbles forward into her and knocks her to the ground.  Her head takes a blow which makes her dizzy, and the smell of the Tyrell man's blood makes her gag.  She tries to look up, but with her dizziness and ill feeling, she only manages to make out the shape of a horse, and a figure on its back.  Three more green-gold Tyrell blurs enter the stable, and the figure on the horse fells them as well, the spear whipping around in the air.  _Jamie?_   she wonders.  _It can't be, he couldn't be back already.  And he doesn't use a spear._ But the figure's proud bearing is strikingly similar. She whispers, "Tawley, take the children," and then goes unconscious.

When she comes to, her head is resting on someone's lap.  She smells leather, and flowers, mingled in such a particular, familiar way.  She opens her eyes, and after they focus, Cat sees her;  her skin is tanned and hair turned three shades lighter from the sun; her face is older.  The sea-green eyes are different too; they look as though they have seen things that have changed the soul behind them, but she still recognizes the fierceness in them, and more than that, the affection, undiminished by the ten long years that have passed.

"Cersei?" Catelyn whispers, as if she is seeing a ghost.

Beneath windburned cheeks and chapped lips, the same crooked smile.  "They call me Sayira now."

"Sayira."  Catelyn sighs.  "That's pretty.  But I'm not changing your niece's name."  Her mind slowly grinds to action.  "Wait... They who?  Who calls you Sayira?"  She starts to try to sit up, finds it doesn't work well for her, and lies back down.

"You cannot guess?"

"I do have a head injury, you know."

"The Maazourin, of course."


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get caught up on the last 10 years of Cersei's life.

_The madness continues.  Once again, I feel compelled to tell you that this is not the end, either._

*****

Catelyn is helped back to her chambers by Cersei (she refuses to think of her as Sayira) and another woman, Esmi. Like Cersei, Esmi is tall, bronzed, and dressed in red leathers.

Once they settle Catelyn into her own bed, Esmi and Cersei exchange a few words in a language that must surely be Maazrini, and then each claps a fist over her heart in what looks like a salute of a sort. Esmi departs.

Catelyn leans back on the pillows, fully taking in how different Cersei looks, now. She looks exactly like the drawings of the Maazourin women from the books they used to read in bed together; high boots, close-fitting red leather breeches and jerkin cinched at the waist by a narrow belt laden with throwing knives; strong, bare arms, long braid down her back.  Her body looks harder than last time they saw each other, full of coiled strength.  She is no longer Catelyn's soft, sweet boy; she is a lean, muscular woman warrior. She is a spear queen.

It is a different sort of beauty than the one she has held in her memory, but it still quickens Catelyn's pulse.

"So... Esmi... And those other women with you...are real Maazourin spear queens," Catelyn says, not quite believing it.

"Yes."

"That's where you've been all this time. In the Maazours, with them."

"Yes."

"The timing of your arrival is uncanny," Catelyn remarks, now that she has had a chance to begin digesting everything that has just happened.

"I told you, Catelyn, that day under the Falls.  I will never allow anyone to hurt you."

"But... how long did it take you to get here?"

"A year."

"You would have had to know a year in advance, and have left at just the right time."

Cersei smiles.  "Our seer told me that it was time to return to you."

"Your seer," Catelyn repeats, almost chuckling.  "Of course you have a seer. Why wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Cersei answers, realizing how absurd it all must sound.  "And apparently, she's quite accurate."

Catelyn shakes her head.  "I think that I am still having a dream thanks to my head knocking against the ground."

Cersei smiles.  "No." She sits, and begins to try to unwind the last ten years without leaving anything important out.

She rode out that night and bypassed Lannisport, since too many people knew her there, and instead took the hard ride up to Cape Kracken to try to find a boat with a captain mad enough to cross the western ocean.

It took most of her gold to pay for the supplies that would carry them there and he'd demanded that she pay for supplies for his return trip too; food, drink, and medicine enough for nine months one way and a year the other, since the winds would be against him going home. And then there'd be his actual fee, besides. Except after a few days, he'd decided that it wasn't gold that he wanted as payment for his services. He crept into her cabin in the night and tried to force himself on her as she slept. The captain of the Storm Runner became the second man that she would kill in her life.

Since she knew how to sail, she was able to bring the ship all the way across, but since she'd never sailed so far a distance, she found when she reached the coast of Rak'Mundi, the continent the Westerosi call The Far West, that she had drifted too far south, and now had a long trip northwards to the Maazours.

No-one spoke the Common Tongue, and even the limited Valyrian she knew seemed useless. But she was able to flash that bit of gold she had left, and get herself a horse to take her inland and northwards to the mountains. She packed as much of the supplies from the ship as she could, and headed out.

Perhaps the greatest inaccuracy in the Westerosi maps was that they underrepresented the distance from the coast to the mountains. She ran out of supplies and it was only luck, or perhaps divine intervention, that a group of Maazourin farmers found her, passed out from hunger, slumped on her horse, near one of their villages.

They nursed her back to health, and then brought her to the spear queens, once they figured out (from her gesticulating and invoking the names of Randa Kanshara and some of the other great queens) that that was what she wanted. At first the spear queens did not want to take her, because she was foreign, did not know their language or their ways, and looked too soft and pretty to fight. But she refused to leave, and day by day she learned their language, and insisted on taking their combat trials again and again, for months, until they accepted her, mostly out of an amused respect for her sheer persistence.

The training was grueling but Cersei trained harder than anyone. She rose earlier, went to bed later, and constantly challenged trainers much bigger and stronger than she. The spear queens would laugh at her, thinking she was crazy and was going to get herself beaten up. And often she did, but she'd be back the next day regardless. The older queens came to jokingly refer to her as "Sayana," which meant "lion cub."

After two years of ending up bruised and sore every day from having the snot beaten out of her by some enormous woman with massive arms and a large stick, she started to improve. She began waking up in less pain. Her aim when throwing her spear became so accurate she could peg a crow from fifty paces, then a hundred. She became able to knock her trainers off their horses sometimes and held her own against them in combat on foot. She learned their language and their ways.  She was finally given a real spear, and red leathers, and they braided her hair the way that she wears it now.   They gave her a proper spear queen name, Sayira, which means "lioness". In a few years, she became captain of the Twelve that she now leads.

"I never forgot what you said to me," Cersei says. "About power and purpose.  At the port when I landed there, I saw a girl, heartrendingly young, in chains, naked, being sold to a burly man in a long cloak. I knew enough to know what her fate was. I thought about trying to outbid him with the little bit of gold left in my pocket; but I realized that I myself might well be captured and sold if I tried. I'd killed two men, but had also been lucky both times; they'd not been large, or armed, and they'd been drunkards.  The tragedy of this girl's fate burned in my chest, but I was afraid to risk helping her.  When I was made a captain and allowed to choose my Twelve, I came before our Queen of Queens, Jadiya, and asked that in remembrance of what I saw when I landed in the West, my Twelve be allowed to pursue the cause of freeing women and girls from bond and prostitution, and that is most of what we have been doing ever since. We tell the ones that we free that they owe us nothing and may go their own way if they wish, but most choose to come join us. We have been doing this all over Rak'Mundi."  Her eyes flash as she says this, and Catelyn can only guess what she has seen on these rescue raids, and what it has come to mean to her to free these girls and guide them as warriors.

Catelyn clasps Cersei's hands.  "We have girls like this in Westeros, too," she says quietly.

"They are everywhere," Cersei agrees, "and we are only Twelve.  But we will free as many as we can.  And perhaps some of the ones we free will be permitted to take their own Twelve, when they are ready, to do the same."

Catelyn is struggling to find a word for the feeling that overwhelms her now.  "You have become so much more than I even dreamt for you, Cersei ..."  She stops, and now knowing the meaning of her new name, she amends, "...Sayira."

Cersei smiles warmly and kisses Catelyn's hands.  "I am what I am because of you, Catelyn.  I would never have known that there was a place across the sea where I belonged, if not for you.  I never forgot the things you said about history, and politics, and power, and morality... even," she adds with a look of guilt and maybe mischief,  "if it seemed I wasn't listening.  But I was always listening, even after I could no longer hear your voice."

Catelyn's heart almost caves in when she says this.

Cersei glances down and notices a little piece of purple fabric laid carefully beside Catelyn's pillow. It is faded and starting to go threadbare, but it is unmistakable. Beneath her sun-bronze, her cheeks seem to flush a bit. "You kept my little boat," she whispers.

"Yes, though your scent no longer lingers on it." Catelyn feels the nearly-forgotten but instantly-familiar tug in her gut, the hunger to touch her. She lifts a hand to Cersei's bare arm, squeezing it, digging her fingers into the taut muscles, fascinated by them.

Cersei's eyes seem to go impossibly soft at her touch. Catelyn's eyes settle at the base of Cersei's throat and see the little silver trout she'd given her the night before the wedding. "And you kept my little fish."

"Of course."

Catelyn withdraws her hand. "And what of Esmi? Is she... yours?"

Cersei smiles and shakes her head. "She is my battle bride.  We fight in pairs."

"And are you also lovers?"

Cersei sighs, covering Catelyn's hand with her own. "No, she is not my lover, though I think she would be if I wanted it.  It is encouraged to take your lover as your battle bride, because it is thought to make the brides fight more fiercely to defend one another."  She looks seriously at Catelyn. "But any woman who wants to fight at my side is made to understand that she will never have my heart."  Cersei looks at her for a long moment.  "Do you remember, Cat, reading to me about Randa Kanshara?"

"How could I forget?  I never saw you so enthralled with anything we read."

"Well, she wasn't a woman."

"She wasn't?"

"No. She was two women."

"Two?"

 

> Two. Randa, and Kanshara. Randa was a spear queen, a fierce and gifted warrior who was rising to fame among the Maazourin. Kanshara was the young chieftess of a village at the foot of the Maazours.
> 
> It was expected by many that Randa would one day be Queen of Queens, so great was her prowess. She was a fearless and cunning fighter, and the spear queens competed amongst themselves for the opportunity to follow her into battle.  Randa's battle bride had been her twin sister, Amadi, but she had lost her to a sickness in winter, and had ridden with no one since. Many wanted to be the one to replace her, but Amadi had been gone five years, and still Randa led her spear queens alone, with no battle bride at her side.  Her Twelve was an eleven, which is rarely a good thing.
> 
> Randa one day led her warriors on a raid on a small village. Randa saw a beautiful girl with thick black hair and wide dark eyes, standing by the well in the center of the village, drawing water up in buckets. She was so beautiful that Randa fell in love with her immediately. She rode over to her and said, _I am Randa, and I have come to take what I wish from your village._
> 
> And the girl stood calmly, and did not look up from her task for more than a moment. And she said, _and what is it you wish to take?_
> 
> Randa said, _Everything. Food. Leather. Men. And you._ And she reared up her horse and twirled her spear in the air to show she was powerful enough to do it.
> 
> The girl, Kanshara, did not cower. She lifted her gaze and looked Randa in the face, and Randa saw no fear in her eyes. She told Kanshara, _If you come away with me, I will tell my spear queens to leave your village be._
> 
> Kanshara said, _I cannot come away with you. I am chieftess of this village, and my people need me._
> 
> Randa could not believe that one so young and sweet-faced could be a chieftess and she said so.
> 
> Kanshara said, _my father taught me to walk in wisdom, and I have done it since the day he died._
> 
> Randa said, _if you will not come away with me, then sit and take a meal with me by the banks of the Tamra. Do this, and I will leave your people be._
> 
> To this, Kanshara agreed. So they sat by the river, watching the cranes skim it's surface and the sunlight play upon it's waters, and they ate. Kanshara told Randa of a place along Tamra River that was steeped in magic, and if she went to it, and struck a certain rock with her spear, and said certain words, that she and her spear queens would have enough to eat.
> 
> Randa said, _I will do as you say. But if it does not work, then I will return, and you will have to come away with me._
> 
> But it worked as Kanshara had said, and the spear queens had enough to eat that day and all the next. When she struck the rock and said the words, fish leapt from the water onto the banks, and all manner of fruits flung themselves from the trees. Tiyee, the Queen of Queens, was angry that Randa did not raid the village, but Randa promised it would be worth it. She told Tiyee of the rock, and swore to her that she thought the girl had still more to tell her.
> 
> So she returned to see Kanshara again and they took another meal by the River. Again, Kanshara had wisdom to share and when Randa listened to her, she prospered from it. The next time Randa came to see her, she brought her a gift of water orchids, bluer than the skies above the plains. There was no more talk of raiding Kanshara's village after that.  She came to see Kanshara as often as she could, and Kanshara saw that Randa's heart was brave, strong, and that she loved honor.  But she also saw beneath it and saw that there was beauty and softness in it.  Randa found that Kanshara, with her sweetness and her wise, thoughtful ways, brought out tenderness in her that she had never felt.  It was stronger than any lust, hunger, rage or pride.  It made her treat Kanshara with great care and affection that she had never lavished on another before.  And Kanshara, as time passed, fell as much in love with Randa as Randa had been with her since they moment they met.
> 
> With Kanshara's wise advice, Randa rose through the ranks of the spear queens.  When Tiyee, the Queen of Queens was old, and soon to pass away, she called Randa to her and said, _The women must decide, but I intend to give you my blessing to be the next Queen of Queens._
> 
> Randa bowed her head and thanked Tiyee for the honor.
> 
> _But,_ Tiyee said, _you must take Kanshara as your wife._
> 
> _But Kanshara does not fight,_ Randa said.
> 
> And Tiyee said, _Not as a battle bride.  As a queen to rule beside you.  It has never pleased me that you chose to ride alone since you lost Amadi._ Tiyee was a wise queen, because one doesn't get to be an old spear queen without being a wise one.  _Alone, I believe you would be a fine Queen of Queens, but with Kanshara beside you, you could make our tribe something greater.  Promise me you will do this, and I will give you my blessing before the others._
> 
> Randa was happy to do as Tiyee asked of her.  She took Kanshara as her wife and their tribes were joined, and after Tiyee passed, they ruled together from Kanshara's little village at the foot of the Maazour mountains.  Randa loved Kanshara for her gentleness, her wisdom, her calm, her quiet strength, and her beauty.  Kanshara loved Randa for her fierceness, passion, bravery and honor.  And they were not just legendary queens who changed the tribe forever, making them more than just nomad warrior women, they are also one of the Maazourin's greatest love stories.  Kanshara's poetry still survives on the lips of many Maazourin, and is some of the most beautiful I have ever heard... _my heart becomes the size of the sky, to let room so you may hang your stars across it... my heart becomes the size of a mountain, that your rivers may rush freely down it and wet my soul so that green things grow_."

Catelyn is not even sure when she began gripping Cersei's hand so tightly, or when she began to well up with tears, but they look at each other now, and Cersei says,  "Do you understand, Catelyn?  No-one may have my heart, because you are my Kanshara.  I am who I am because of you, and am only half of what I can be when I am without you."

These words seem to reach into Catelyn's chest and twist something in her until it aches.  She realizes that she never stopped hoping this day would come, and that that was why she never sought any other lovers, though she was free to do so.  "I have waited for you," she whispered.

"I knew that you would."

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion. For real.

Catelyn and Cersei sit quietly for an endless moment. Catelyn's eyes have adjusted to all the things about Cersei's appearance that are different, and now are able to linger on everything that is pleasantly familiar: her beautiful face, her smile, the hue of her eyes, the curve of her breasts.  Feelings that have been slumbering in dark rooms within her begin to stir.

Cersei leans in and kisses Catelyn softly. Catelyn notices that her lips feel different, chapped as they are from near-constant time outside in all kinds of weather. Yet her kiss is the same; tender, passionate, laced with the brush of her soft, searching tongue. It almost overwhelms Catelyn's senses.

She pulls back for a moment and looks at her Cersei, her Sayira, her lioness. "It has been a long time since I've felt this... what it is to want someone."  She is suddenly seized by the urge to run her fingers through all of Cersei's golden hair.  She reaches around and strokes the long, thick braid that runs down her back.  "Do you know how I have missed your hair?  I sometimes dream of feeling it in my hands... May I let it down?"

Cersei reaches back and swings the large braid around and over her shoulder, and takes a few moments to unwork a rather involved-looking leather fastening at the bottom of it.  "This will take a little while," she says with a tender smile, "and you will need to help me."  Catelyn sees that the braid is wound with leather strips all the way up its length; it is a complicated endeavor to wrap up what must represent seven or eight years of letting her hair grow.  So, carefully, with occasional guidance from Cersei, Catelyn begins to carefully free her sun-bleached hair from its bindings.  It takes a good twenty minutes to get it all undone, and in that time, they don't converse; they simply sit and ease themselves into what it means to be in each others' presence again.

In that thickly wound braid, Cersei's hair had gone down to the small of her back, but undone, it cascades down her shoulders, her back, and around her hips, spreading out on the mattress.  Catelyn strokes it for a moment, runs her fingers through it, looks at the light play on it, then carefully takes some in her hands.  There is so much more of it than there was before, so much of it that she can bring it to her face and breathe its scent without Cersei even having to move.  It's a different collision of scents than the ones she remembers, though no less intoxicating; campfires, sea air, spices she cannot identify, and something like orange blossoms.  It is an embarrassment of riches.  It is the only Lannister gold that she wants.

Cersei gently brushes Catelyn's fingers down onto her lap, then takes all of her hair, swings it around her shoulder, and then, because there is so much of it, she wraps it around both of Catelyn's shoulders.  They lean into each other and kiss once more, now wound together in the voluminous locks of Cersei's fragrant, white-gold hair.  Catelyn fingers it lightly as they explore each others' mouths, reclaiming the newness of their young love.  The kisses are better than she remembers; it seems as though each time she has a fleeting desire to feel something harder or softer, or feel Cersei's tongue on her lips, it is instantly happening in the exact way that she hungers for it.

"I wish I could take you to my tent," Cersei says, looking at her dreamily.  "Would you like to go?"

"What, now?" Catelyn laughs.

"Now."  Cersei kisses her again, and then, her lips brushing against Catelyn's ear, she whispers, "In my tent I have lit a fire, and put lilac oil on the wood. It perfumes the air as it burns."

And it is the strangest thing, but suddenly, Catelyn can smell it quite vividly, the smoke and then the unmistakable floral scent.

"It is rainy this time of year in the Maazours," Cersei continues, "and it falls softly on the outside of the tent with its quiet little cat feet."

And Catelyn swears that she can hear it; soft drops falling, their impact muffled by the thick fabric of the tent.  She glances out the window and knows that it is not raining here, yet she knows what she's experiencing.

"And the air has the sharp taste of the rain.  But it doesn't chill you; the fire is warm on your skin," she goes on.

And although she is here in her own chamber, she is also there in Cersei's tent, smelling the fragrant fire, feeling its warmth, hearing the rain, tasting the air.  She looks at Cersei with amazement.  "How are you doing this?" she whispers.

"We learn to reach into each others' minds as part of our training, so that we move and fight as one during combat. It's another reason why they encourage lovers to become battle brides; the strength of their bond makes it easier to do this."

"But I have never learned this," Catelyn says, her voice incredibly small and full of wonderment.

"Then it speaks to the strength of our bond," Cersei answers with a sweet smile.  She strokes Catelyn's cheek, looking at her lovingly.  "Lie down, my love, and open yourself to me, and I will show you."

They momentarily release themselves from Cersei's golden hair, and lie down beside each other, face to face.  Cersei murmurs, "Close your eyes... Tell me what you feel."  Catelyn closes her eyes and she can feel a fur; thick, silky and welcoming beneath her back as they lay there.

"Yes," Cersei says happily. "It was a great red bear. He was my first hunt, and that is where I lay when I sleep." She kisses Catelyn's mouth, and then whispers excitedly, "Let me show you the mountains."

Catelyn's mind swims, strange and loose, with a vision of mountains, capped with white, the sun sinking orange below them, splashing color on the clouds like a painting.

"We have drunk a drink made from fermented clover honey, and it's sweetness and burn still linger on your lips."

Catelyn lies there, half in and half out of herself, feeling the sweet burn of the drink as if she had actually drunk it, and also feeling she wants to be kissed again.  Cersei's lips are there to fulfill her.  "Is it only your senses that you are able to share with me?" she asks, breathless.

"No," Cersei whispers, "I can feel where and how you want to be kissed.  I can feel what you intend to do a moment before you do it.  And I can feel the corners of you that are still afraid to believe this."  She tilts Catelyn's head to one side and lays some light kisses on her neck.  "Open yourself and feel what I feel, and see yourself as I see you."

"How?"

Cersei lays a hand on her face.  "Feel my hand here... but also feel it inside the tent.  Let yourself follow me," she says softly.

She lets herself drift on the feeling of Cersei's touch, first here in her room in Casterly, and then in the other place, the one in her head built from that strange collection of sense-memories being fed to her.  All at once, she suddenly feels a wave of desire, but she recognizes it as not being her own.  She feels such sweet hunger from end to end, and she knows that it is Cersei's passion for her, washing over her.  She can feel that her lioness is dying to make love to her, to be naked and wrapped up in her, and she is, for a moment, afraid that she will be overwhelmed by the combined strength of their desires, until she remembers that this is the entire the point of making love.

They speak no more after this; they undress each other slowly and carefully, gazing appreciatively on each part of each other as they unwrap it, freeing each other from their strings and ties and belts.  Catelyn has a moment of hesitation, worrying that her body, which has been stretched and stressed from childbearing, will disappoint Cersei, who is now so strong and athletic.  But Cersei feels her worry and wipes it away with a flood of memories of the two of them; riding together, reading in bed, kissing secretively in stairwells, falling asleep talking.  She stops worrying, and only wants to be close to her now.

She learns to identify when and where Cersei's skin needs the attention of her hands or mouth, becoming more sure at distinguishing the hard, bright stars of her lioness's longings from her own.  When they are completely naked, they spend a few minutes clinging to one another in the bed, moving against each other.  When Cersei's lips make their way down Catelyn's neck and chest and stomach, kissing her exactly as she so aches for, but was always too demure to say, she drinks in both the feel of her mouth, and the thrill that Cersei gets from sharing in her pleasure.  She sees brief flashes of a red-haired goddess wreathed in light, and realizes she is seeing herself as Cersei sees her in these moments.  She can feel the hot ache between Cersei's legs too, as powerfully as Cersei feels it, and wants to cool her beautiful spear queen's fevered longings with endless kisses.  There are no questions in Catelyn's heart now; she can feel that even after so much time, this woman is hers.  And there is no doubt in her mind that she has never stopped wanting it to be that way.

They please each other so many times, their movements perfectly anticipated, instantly adjusting the pressure of their touches, the speed of their tongues, the rocking of their hips when they are entwined and pressed sex to sex.  No fleeting desire goes unanswered.  They are inside of each other in a way that they have never been.  They lose track of how many times they come, because they share in each others' climaxes in an entirely new way.  The bed in Casterly and the tent in the Maazours become indistinguishable.  They know there will be many questions to answer after this, but they are not afraid.  _Surely,_ Catelyn thinks, _the gods must smile on a joining such as this._

When they are too exhausted to make love anymore, they draw Cersei's golden hair over themselves, and rest, blissful, among its silken waves.  "My Sayira," Catelyn whispers adoringly, closing her eyes.  "My Kanshara," her lover whispers back.

 

********************

 

Cersei's Twelve, as it happens, were instrumental in beating back House Tyrell, and they are invited to stay as long as they wish.  They are fed, housed, and their wounds treated, though there are very few to treat.  It is a curious thing, to have a dozen boisterous women warriors stomping around the halls of Casterly Rock, shouting to each other in Maazrini and giving spearfighting exhibitions on the terraces in the mornings and afternoons.  A few men of the Rock come to challenge them the first day, but receive such a sound thrashing that no more dare it after that.

When Cersei and Cat make their way down to meet them, Esmi and the others get one look at Cersei's undone hair, which she has for the moment stuffed inelegantly into a kind of huge, clunky double ponytail, and they smile and chuckle amongst themselves. Esmi claps her on the shoulder, and grins, saying something in Maazrini. Then she turns to Catelyn and smiles. "Sayira tells us much of you, Cat-a-lin," she says in heavily accented Common Tongue, breaking her name into three syllables. "You are beautiful as she say. We was think maybe she--". She pauses, looking for the words. She glances at Cersei. "How you say, Sayira-?"  She utters a phrase in Maazrini.

Cersei chuckles, "Esmi, we say _full of shit._ "

Esmi nods, with a sly, funny look. "We was think maybe she full-of-shit, but now we think she lucky."

Though Catelyn rarely blushes anymore, she smiles, slightly embarrassed, and thanks her.

Cersei meets the children, who are fascinated with this strange Aunt Sayira that they have never heard about before, and little Cersei seems most captivated of all.  "Can I go back across the sea with you?" she asks sweetly.

The elder Cersei laughs. "I think your father would become very cross with me if I were to steal his little girl away without his permission."  She spars gently and carefully with the children and their wooden swords, pleased to see how bright and beautiful they are, and how much they look and act like the two people who have meant most to her in her life; her twin brother, and her beloved Cat.  She half-jokes about stealing both Catelyn and the children away to Rak'Mundi, and she receives a head shake and the sidelong glance that Catelyn has spent the intervening years perfecting.

But the question must be answered: how will they carry on with this?  Tywin is no longer alive to keep them apart, but the fact remains that Cersei has found a home, and a mission, and it is far across the sea. And while it is enticing for Catelyn to think of living amongst a people that would celebrate the love they share rather than expect them to hide it, her children are children of the Rock, and she cannot uproot them, nor can she leave them.

They stand together on a terrace overlooking the sea, watching the boats streaming to and from the port.  "I am of two worlds," Cersei sighs. "I feel I belong there, but this also feels like home."  She pauses and looks at Catelyn.  " _You_ feel like home."

Catelyn feels that ache in her chest again.  "Then let us begin from the place of knowing that any solution we choose will be imperfect."

"How long," asks Cersei, "until your children do not need you all of the time?"

"Dorron is nearly nine, Rylan is seven, Cersei is five."

"So, ten years, then?  I should think they would all be married or engaged by then."

"Ten years again," Catelyn laughs.  "Not another ten years apart."

They shake their heads.

 _What if I stay a year, then go back for a year.  Then stay a year there, then come back again?  What if you only take the trip with me and then come back?_ They run through different configurations of how much time in Casterly, how much in the Maazours... They resort to borrowing a bag of different colored marbles from Rylan to visually figure out what will be least absurd.

In the end, it is decided: Cersei will stay two years at Casterly.  She will let her Twelve decide whether they will stay with her or return to the Maazours.  At the end of the two years, she will return to the Maazours, stay there for two years, and then return.  So, two years together, four years apart.  After that, two more years at Casterly, and then heading back.  And then, after that, circumstances permitting, Catelyn will come and join her.  After that, who knows?  Imperfect, but it is a plan.

"So much time away from the tribe," Catelyn says with concern.  "Do you think they will accept your absence?  Will it not make it difficult for you to rise?"

Cersei shrugs.  "I don't care.  I don't need to be Queen of Queens.  I don't need to even be a general.  If all I ever do is command a Twelve that frees sex slaves and trains them into warriors, my life will have meant something."  She takes Catelyn's hand.  "I learned that from you."

 

**************************

 

Sayira's Twelve are loyal to her and have no interest in returning without her.  No other Twelve is doing the work that they do, and they are fiercely committed to it.  The Maazourin spear queens take up semi-permanent residence at Casterly, and Jamie is not altogether pleased, at first.  He learns that Selwyn Tarth's young daughter, Brienne, upon succeeding him, has opened an academy on the Sapphire Isle which trains warriors top to bottom in fighting skills, strategy, weaponry, history, and ethics.  It piques his interest that the academy often hosts master classes and exhibitions, and he sends the Twelve there to do exhibitions on a regular basis, to get breaks from their rowdy ways.

But he understands what his sister is trying to accomplish with their real mission, and it is not very long before, at Catelyn's behest, he starts quietly supporting them in the liberation of Westerosi girls as well.  Pimps and slavers start to develop a particular dislike for House Lannister.  The girls that Sayira's Twelve rescue wind up being shunted to the Academy at Tarth and being trained there in the warrior skills as the Lady of Tarth prefers them taught.

The children become close with their Aunt Sayira, in particular little Cersei.  Catelyn knows that she, like her aunt, is a child of the Rock but will likely be boarding the Storm Runner with Cersei at the end of her next stay.

Catelyn learns to speak Maazrini.  They lie together in the evenings and Cersei slips inside of her mind and shows her the beauty of the Maazours and the Tamra River at night.  She comes to know the Twelve, in particular Esmi, who speaks the Common Tongue.  Catelyn discovers that Esmi insisted on being taught after she and Cersei pledged to each other, so that Cersei would not forget where she came from.  The two years pass quickly, too quickly.  As they are leaving, Catelyn takes Esmi aside and makes her swear to keep her Sayira safe.  Esmi laughs, because that is her job, after all.

Ten years flies by.  Sayira's Twelve become notorious both in Westeros and Rak'Mundi, and Queen Jadiya has allowed two of the girls who Cersei rescued and trained to captain their own Twelves, and carry on the same work.  The tribe grows, along with the reputation of Sayira.   She has explained her situation to Jadiya, and Jadiya allows her to continue to travel to Westeros with her Twelve to carry out their work there.  She would have preferred that she would simply take Esmi as her lover, but Sayira's heart is set; she is adamant that she is who she is because of that woman across the sea, and Jadiya grudgingly respects it.  They agree that Jadiya will not to elevate her through the ranks until she is able to bring her woman here.

House Lannister carefully divides itself up and works out what life will be like in the coming years.  Catelyn wishes to go to the Maazours, Jamie wishes to stay in Westeros.  Dorron will be Lord of the Rock, and does not wish to give that up.  Rylan wishes to stay and claim his own inheritance.  Little Cersei though, who is a tall, slender teenager now, is not interested in marriage, and wishes to go and become a warrior queen like her Aunt Sayira; Jamie knows better than to try to stop her.  But he makes Catelyn swear that they will return to the Rock regularly, so that he may continue to know his family.

Catelyn will miss Jamie.  His humor and intelligence and caring for her and their children has made it possible for her to survive the last twenty years.  She feels awful at leaving him alone, even if they were never in love.  "I am not alone," he says, "I have Dorron and Rylan.  And my brother Tyrion.  But nevertheless, you must come back with my daughter and sister as often as you can.  I am counting on you to make certain of it."

And so it goes.  Because they spend a good deal of time traveling to and from Westeros, Sayira is never elevated much above commanding her Twelve, and serving as a trainer, but she does not mind.  She is able to stand before everyone, and take Catelyn as her wife.  She is able to do something that matters.  She is able to have a family around her; both blood and chosen tribe.  She is able to be who she was meant to be.

Catelyn finds life in the Maazours quite different.  She does not become a warrior but she adjusts to the new life, and the simplicity and beauty of it.  She loves their tent, she loves sleeping and making love on the bearskins, she loves wearing clothing that does not so restrict her movement.  She learns the arts of the tribe and teaches them her own.  She is able to mother her teenage daughter and watch her follow in the footsteps of her namesake, become a warrior, lead a Twelve, fight for honorable causes.  She is happy to grow old this way.

And, as her Maazrini becomes more fluent, she comes to appreciate Kanshara's poetry in its original tongue:

_My heart becomes the size of the sky, that you may hang your stars across it._  
 _My heart becomes the size of a mountain, to let your rivers rush freely down it_  
 _To wet my soul so that green things grow._  
 _You light my plains on fire and then quench them with your rain,_  
 _And let me drink sweet dew from the orchid you keep hidden_  
 _Where only I may find it._  
 _Your embrace is timeless as the mountains, ageless as the rocks,_  
 _Endless as the seas._  
 _You can no more be torn from me than water can be torn from a stream,_  
 _no more than heat can be separated from the sun._  
 _I do not fear death, because I die each night in your arms,_  
 _Brought forth anew in the morning, full of your light._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me on what I realize was a rather long walk for a very unlikely pairing. I've been asked about Kanshara's poem and the answer is yes, I also wrote that as well. I've written a few others like it as sort of an extension of that mythology, which if you've any interest, you can pop over to my blog and find some of it. Here, have a URL: http://wp.me/p4Dxa2-e3


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